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A 


CONSEQUENCES 


THE  NOVELS  OF  E.  M.  DELAFIELD 

ZELLA  SEES  HERSELF 
THE  WAR  WORKERS 
THE  PELICANS 
CONSEQUENCES 

Joseph  Hergesheimgr  writes: 

"The    solid    accomplishment    of    Miss 
Delafield's  three  novels  establishes  her  as 
a    figure    of    actual    literary    importance. 
Writing,  from  her  first  published  sentence 
to   the   ending   phrase    of    The   Pelicans, 
with   a   delicate   mastery   and  finish,  she 
expresses  her  witty  and  forceful  person- 
ality with  the  utmost  clearness. 

Zella  Sees  Herself,    The    War   Work- 
ers, and  The  Pelicans  offer  to  honest  and 
intelligent  people  an  enjoyment  of  what 
arc  recognized   as   really  high   traits   of 
creative   literature  together   with   a   per- 
vading   amusement    and    lively    interest 
sustained  from  paragraph  to  paragraph 
and  from  novel  to  novel.     Miss  Delafield 
is  a  valuable  addition  to  the  number  of 
writers,  always  small,  whose  books  orna- 
ment equally  the  drawing-room  table  and 
the    preference    of    undisturbed    private 
hours." 

At  all  bookshops 

ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  Publisher,  NEW  YORK 

- 

CONSEQUENCES 


by 
E.  M.  Delafield 


>\ 


New  York 
ALFRED  '  A  •  KNOPF 

MCMXIX 


COPYRIGHT,  1019,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  Inc. 


•     a     •    « 
•      «     •  • 

I*       •     •  • 


FEINTED   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES   OP  AMERICA 


Dedicated  to 
M.  P.  P. 

and  J  in  spite  of  air-raids,  to  the 

pleasant  memory  of  our  winter 

in  London,  1917-1918 


Mijssess 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/consequencesOOdelarich 


BOOK  I 

I 

The  Game  of  Consequences  ii 

II 

School  28 

III 

QuEENiE  Torrance  42 

IV 

Holidays  54 

V 

Other  People  64 

VI 

The  End  of  an  Era  "j^j 

VII 

London  Season  89 

VIII 

Goldstein  and  Queenie  99 

IX 

Scotland  108 

X 

Noel  118 

XI 

Engagement  of  Marriage  128 

XII 

Christmas  Pantomime  139 

XIII 

Decision  150 

XIV 

Barbara  161 

XV 

Diamond  Jubilee  174 

XVI 

Mother  Gertrude  186 

XVII 

Lawn-Tennis  200 

XVIII 

Crisis  212 

BOOK  II 

XIX 

Belgium  227 

XX 

Aftermath  239 

XXI 

Father  Farrell  248 

XXII 

Rome  258 

CONTENTS 


XXIII  N.W.  26S 

XXIV  All  of  Them  282 
XXV  Violet  297 

XXVI  August  312 

XXVII  The  Embezzlement  326 

XXVIII  Cedric  333 

XXIX  Forgiveness  340 

XXX  Epitaph  349 


Book  I 


The  Game  of  Consequences 

THE  firelight  flickered  on  the  nursery  wall,  and  the 
children  sat  round  the  table,  learning  the  new  game 
which  the  nursery-maid  said  they  would  like  ever  so, 
directly  they  understood  it. 

''  I  understand  it  already,"  said  Alex,  the  eldest,  tossing 
her  head  proudly.  "  Look,  Barbara,  you  fold  the  piece  of 
paper  like  this,  and  then  give  it  to  Cedric,  because  he's  next 
to  you,  and  I  give  mine  to  you,  and  Emily  gives  hers  to  me. 
That's  right,  isn't  it,  Emily?  " 

"  Quite  right,  Miss  Alex ;  what  a  clever  girl,  to  be  sure. 
Here,  Master  Baby,  you  can  play  with  me.  You're  too 
little  to  do  it  all  by  yourself." 

"  He  isn't  Baby  any  more.  We've  got  to  call  him  Archie 
now.     The  new  little  sister  is  Baby,"  said  Alex  dictatorially. 

She  liked  always  to  be  the  one  to  give  information,  and 
Emily  had  only  been  with  them  a  little  while.  The  chil- 
ren's  own  nurse  would  have  told  her  to  mind  her  own  busi- 
ness, or  to  wait  till  she  was  asked,  before  teaching  her 
grandmother,  but  Emily  said  complacently: 

"  To  be  sure,  Miss  Alex !  and  such  a  big  boy  as  Master 
Archie  is,  too.  Now  you  all  write  down  a  name  of  a  gentle- 
man." 

"What  gentleman?"  asked  Cedric  judicially.  He  was 
a  little  boy  of  eight,  with  serious  grey  eyes  and  a  good  deal 
of  dignity. 

"  Why,  any  gentleman.     Some  one  you  all  know." 

"  I  know,  I  know." 

Alex,  always  the  most  easily  excited  of  them  all,  scrib- 
bled on  her  piece  of  paper  and  began  to  bounce  up  and 
down  on  her  chair. 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  Hurry  up,  Barbara.    You're  so  slow." 

**  I  don't  know  who  to  put." 

Alex  began  to  whisper,  and  Barbara  at  once  said: 

**  Nurse  doesn't  allow  us  to  whisper.     It's  bad  manners." 

'*You  horrid  little  prig!" 

Alex  was  furious.  Barbara's  priggishness  always  put  her 
into  a  temper,  because  she  felt  it,  unconsciously,  to  be  a  re- 
flection on  her  own  infallibility  as  the  eldest. 

**  Miss  Barbara,"  said  Emily  angrily,  "  it's  not  for  you 
to  say  what  Nurse  allows  or  doesn't  allow;  Fm  looking 
after  you  now.     The  idea,  indeed !  " 

Barbara's  pale,  pointed  little  face  grew  very  red,  but 
she  did  not  cry,  as  Alex,  in  spite  of  her  twelve  years,  would 
almost  certainly  have  cried  at  such  a  snub. 

She  set  her  mouth  vindictively  and  shot  a  very  angry 
look  at  Alex  out  of  her  blue  eyes.  Then  she  wrote  some- 
thing on  the  slip  of  paper,  shielding  it  with  her  hand  so 
that  her  sister  could  not  read  it. 

Cedric  was  printing  in  large  capitals,  easily  legible,  but 
no  one  was  interested  in  what  Cedric  wrote. 

There  was  a  good  deal  of  whispering  between  Emily  and 
little  Archie,  and  then  the  papers  were  folded  up  once  more 
and  passed  round  the  table  again. 

"  But  when  do  we  see  what  we've  written  ?  "  asked  Alex 
impatiently. 

"  Not  till  the  end  of  the  game,  then  we  read  them  out. 
That's  where  the  fun  comes  in,"  said  Emily. 

It  was  a  long  while  before  the  papers  were  done,  and 
most  of  the  children  found  it  very  difficult  to  decide  what 
he  said  to  her,  what  she  replied,  and  what  the  world  said. 
But  at  last  even  Barbara,  always  lag-last,  folded  her  slip, 
very  grimy  and  thumb-marked,  and  put  it  with  the  others 
into  Emily's  apron. 

**Now  then,"  giggled  the  nursery-maid,  "pull  one  out, 
Master  Archie,  and  I'll  see  what  it  says." 

Archie  snatched  at  a  paper,  and  they  opened  it. 

*•  Listen !  "  said  Emily. 

[12], 


THE    GAME    OF    CONSEQUENCES 

"  The  Queen  met  Master  Archie  —  whoever  of  you  put 
the  Queen  ? " 

"  Cedric !  "  cried  the  other  children. 

Cedric's  loyalty  to  his  Sovereign  was  a  by-word  in  the 
nursery. 

"  Well,  the  Queen  met  Master  Archie  in  the  Park.  She 
said  to  him,  *  No,'  and  he  answered  her,  *  You  dirty  little 
boy,  go  'ome  and  wash  your  face.*  Well,  if  that  didn't  ought 
to  be  the  other  way  round !  " 

*'  I  wish  it  was  me  she'd  met  in  the  Park,"  said  Cedric 
sombrely.  **  I  might  have  gone  back  to  Buckingham  Palace 
with  her  and  — " 

**  Go  on,  Emily,  go  on !  "  cried  Alex  impatiently.  **  Don't 
listen  to  Cedric.     What  comes  next  ?  " 

'*  The  consequences  was  —  whatever's  here  ?  "  said  Emily, 
pretending  an  inability  to  decipher  her  own  writing. 

"  Well,  I  never !  The  consequences  was,  a  wedding- 
ring.  Whoever  went  and  thought  of  that  now?  And  the 
world  said  — " 

The  nursery  door  opened,  and  Alex  shrieked,  "  Oh,  finish 
it  —  quick !  " 

She  knew  instinctively  that  it  was  Nurse,  and  that  Nurse 
would  be  certain  to  disapprove  of  the  new  game. 

"  Don't  you  make  that  noise,  Alex,"  said  Nurse  sharply. 
"  You'll  disturb  the  baby  with  your  screaming." 

For  a  moment  Alex  wondered  if  the  game  was  to  be  al- 
k)wed  to  proceed,  but  Barbara,  well  known  to  be  Nurse's 
favourite,  must  needs  say  to  her  in  an  amiable  little  voice, 
such  as  she  never  used  to  her  brothers  and  sister: 

"  Emily's  been  teaching  us  such  a  funny  new  game,  Nurse. 
Come  and  play  with  us." 

**  I've  no  time  to  play,  as  you  very  well  know,  with  all 
your  clothes  wanting  looking  over  the  way  they  do,"  Nurse 
told  her  complacently.     "What's  the  game?" 

Alex  kicked  Barbara  under  the  table,  but  without  much 
hope,  and  at  the  same  moment  Cedric  remarked  very  dis- 
tinctly : 

[13] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  It  is  called  Consequences,  and  Archie  met  the  Queen 
in  the  Park.     I  wish  it  had  been  me  instead." 

**WellI"  exclaimed  Nurse.  "That's  the  way  you  do 
when  my  back's  turned,  Miss  Emily,  teaching  them  such 
vulgar,  nonsensical  games  as  that.  Never  did  I  hear  — 
now  give  me  those  papers  this  minute." 

She  did  not  wait  to  be  given  anything,  but  snatched  the 
little  slips  out  of  Emily's  apron  and  threw  them  on  to  the 
fire. 

"  I'm  not  going  to  have  no  Consequences  in  my  nursery, 
and  don't  you  believe  it ! "  remarked  Nurse. 

But  omnipotent  though  Nurse  was,  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Clare  children,  she  could  not  altogether  compass  this  feat. 

There  were  consequences  of  all  sorts. 

Cedric,  who  was  obstinate,  and  Barbara,  also  obstinate  and 
rather  sly  as  well,  continued  to  play  at  the  new  game  in 
comers  by  themselves,  refusing  to  admit  Alex  to  their  so- 
ciety because  she  told  them  that  they  were  playing  it  all 
wrong.  She  knew  that  they  were  not  playing  it  as  Emily 
had  taught  them,  and  was  prepared  to  set  them  right,  al- 
though she  felt  uncertain,  in  the  depths  of  her  heart,  as  to 
whether  she  herself  could  remember  it  all.  But  at  least 
she  knew  more  than  Barbara,  who  was  silly  and  a  copy- 
cat, or  than  Cedric,  who  had  concentrated  on  the  possibili- 
ties the  game  presented  to  him  of  a  hypothetical  encounter 
between  himself  and  his  Sovereign.  The  game  for  Cedric 
consisted  in  the  ever-lengthening  conversation  which  took 
place  under  the  heading  of  what  he  said  to  her  and  what  she 
replied.  When  Her  Majesty  proceeded,  under  Cedric's 
laborious  pencil,  to  invite  him  to  drive  her  in  her  own  car- 
riage-and-pair,  to  Buckingham  Palace,  Alex  said  scorn- 
fully that  Cedric  was  a  silly  Httle  boy,  and  of  course  the 
Queen  wouldn't  say  that.  To  which  Cedric  turned  a  per- 
fectly deaf  ear,  and  continued  slowly  to  evolve  amenities 
eminently  satisfactory  to  his  admiration  for  Her  Majesty. 
Alex  went  away,  shrugging  her  shoulders,  but  secretly  she 
knew  that  Cedric's  indifference  had  got  the  better  of  her. 

[14]' 


THE    GAME    OF    CONSEQUENCES 

However  much  she  might  laugh,  with  the  other  children, 
or  sometimes,  even,  in  a  superior  way,  with  the  grown-ups, 
when  the  children  went  into  the  drawing-room,  at  Cedric's 
slowness,  and  his  curious  fashion  of  harping  upon  one  idea 
at  a  time,  Alex  was  sub-consciously  aware  of  Cedric  as  a 
force,  and  one  which  could,  ultimately,  always  defeat  her 
own  diffused,  unbalanced  energies.  If  any  one  laughed  at 
Alex,  or  despised  one  of  her  many  enthusiasms,  she  would 
quickly  grow  ashamed  of  it,  and  try  to  pretend  that  she  had 
never  really  been  in  earnest.  In  the  same  way,  she  would 
affect  qualities  and  instincts  which  did  not  belong  to  her, 
with  the  hope  of  attracting,  and  of  gaining  affection. 

But  Cedric  went  his  own  way,  as  genuinely  undisturbed 
by  Nurse's  scoldings  and  bustlings  as  by  his  elder  sister's 
mockery,  which  had  its  origin  in  her  secret  longing  to  prove 
to  herself,  in  spite  of  her  own  inmost  convictions,  that 
she  was  the  dominant  spirit  in  her  little  world. 

It  always  made  her  angry  when  Cedric  left  her  gibes  un- 
answered, not  from  a  desire  to  provoke  her  further,  but 
simply  from  his  complete  absorption  in  the  matter  in  hand, 
and  his  utter  indifference  to  Alex's  comments. 

"  Don't  you  hear  what  I  say?  "  Alex  asked  sharply. 

**  No,"  said  Cedric  baldly.  **  I'm  not  listening.  Don't 
interrupt  me,  Alex." 

"  You're  playing  it  all  wrong  —  you  and  Barbara.  Two 
silly  little  babies,"  she  cried  angrily  and  incoherently. 
"  And  it's  a  stupid,  vulgar  game.     Nurse  said  so." 

Although  Alex  had  been  the  most  enthusiastic  of  them  all 
when  Emily  had  first  taught  her  the  game,  she  had  at  once 
begun  to  think  it  vulgar  when  Nurse  condemned  it. 

She  would  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  "  Consequences." 
It  was  quite  likely  that  in  a  few  days  Barbara  would  get 
into  one  of  her  priggish,  perverse  moods,  and  in  a  fit  of 
temper  with  Cedric  go  and  tell  Nurse  that  he  was  still  in- 
dulging in  the  forbidden  pastime.  Alex  thought  she  might 
as  well  be  out  of  it. 

She  was  in  trouble  often  enough  in  the  nursery.    Nurse 

[IS] 


CONSEQUENCES 


always  took  Barbara*s  part  against  her,  and  accused  her  of 
being  violent  and  over-bearing,  and  then  Lady  Isabel,  the 
children's  mother,  would  send  for  her  to  her  room  while 
she  dressed  for  dinner,  and  say  complainingly : 

*'  Alex,  why  do  you  quarrel  so  with  the  others  ?  I  shall 
send  you  to  school,  if  you  can't  be  happy  with  Barbara  at 
home." 

"  Oh,  don't  send  me  to  school,  mummy." 

**  Not  if  you're  good." 

"  I  will  be  good,  really,  I  will." 

"Very  well,  my  child.  Now  ring  for  Hawkins,  or  I 
shall  be  late." 

"  May  I  stay  and  watch  you  put  on  your  diamond  things, 
mummy?    Do  let  me." 

And  Lady  Isabel  always  laughed,  and  let  her  stay,  so 
that  Alex  eventually  went  back  to  the  nursery  with  an  elated 
sense  of  having  been  very  good,  and  accorded  privileges 
which  never  fell  to  the  lot  of  self-righteous  Barbara. 

She  knew  she  was  her  mother's  favourite,  because  she  was 
the  eldest,  and  was  often  sent  for  to  the  drawing-room  when 
there  were  people  there.  Barbara,  of  course,  was  too  ugly 
to  go  much  to  the  drawing-room.  Alex  would  toss  her  own 
mane  of  silky  brown  curls,  and  draw  herself  up  conceitedly, 
as  she  thought  of  Barbara's  pale  face,  and  thin,  attenuated 
ringlets.  Besides,  Lady  Isabel  had  said  that  Barbara  really 
mustn't  come  down  again  when  '*  people  "  were  there  until 
her  second  teeth  had  put  in  their  tardy  appearance.  Even 
Cedric,  though  acclaimed  as  '*  quaint "  and  "  solemn  "  by 
his  mother's  friends,  was  too  apt  to  make  disconcerting 
comments  on  their  sparkling  conversation,  and  would  re- 
turn to  the  nursery  in  disgrace.  Alex'  only  rival  for  down- 
stairs' favour  was  little  Archie,  who  was  only  four,  and  at 
present  a  very  pretty  little  boy.  But  he  was  too  small  for 
Alex  ever  to  feel  jealous  of  him.  The  new  baby,  chris- 
tened with  pomp  in  the  big  Catholic  Church  at  the  end  of 
the  Square,  Pamela  Isabel,  was,  so  far,  a  neghble  quantity 
in  the  nursery  world. 

[i6], 


THE    GAME    OF    CONSEQUENCES 

She  slept  in  the  little  room  called  the  inner  nursery,  most 
of  the  day,  and  was  only  with  the  others  when  they  were 
taken  into  the  Park  or  to  play  in  the  square  garden.  Then 
Emily  pushed  the  big  pram  that  contained  the  slumbering 
Pamela,  and  Nurse  grasped  the  hands  of  Barbara  and 
Archie  and  dragged  them  over  the  crossings. 

Cedric,  by  Nurse's  express  orders,  always  walked  just  in 
front  of  her  with  Alex,  and  unwillingly  submitted  to  having 
his  hand  held  by  his  sister. 

"  Not  that  I  trust  Alex  for  common  sense,"  Nurse  was 
careful  to  explain,  "  not  a  yard,  but  so  long  as  they're  to- 
gether I  can  keep  an  eye  on  both  and  see  they  don't  get  un- 
der no  hansom's  feet.  That  boy's  spectacles  are  too  down- 
right uncanny  for  me  to  let  him  cross  the  road  alone." 

For  Cedric  was  obliged  to  wear  a  large  pair  of  round 
spectacles,  without  which  he  could  only  see  things  that  were 
very  close  to  his  eyes.  He  even  had  another,  different, 
pair  for  reading,  which  seemed  to  Alex  an  exaggerated  pre- 
caution, likely  to  increase  Cedric's  sense  of  his  own  im- 
portance. 

"  Well,"  said  Cedric.     "  You  have  a  plate,  and  I  haven't." 

Alex's  plate  was  an  instrument  of  torture  designed  to  push 
back  two  prominent  front  teeth.  It  not  only  hurt  her  and 
kept  her  awake  at  night,  but  was  very  disfiguring  besides, 
and  she  passionately  envied  Barbara,  who  at  nine  years 
old  still  had  only  gaps  where  her  front  teeth  should  have 
been. 

*'  Of  course,"  Alex  would  sometimes  declare  grandly,  re- 
peating what  she  had  heard  Lady  Isabel  say,  "  Barbara  is 
dreadfully  backward.  She's  such  a  baby  for  her  age.  I'm 
very  old  for  my  age." 

But  she  only  said  this  in  the  drawing-room,  where  it 
would  provoke  kindly  laughter  or  perhaps  interested  com- 
ment. In  the  nursery.  Nurse  never  suffered  any  airs  and 
graces,  as  she  called  them,  and  would  pounce  on  Alex  and 
shake  her  at  the  least  hint  of  any  such  nonsense. 

"  Just  you  wait  till  you're  sent  to  a  good  strict  school,  my 

[17] 


CONSEQUENCES 


lady,  and  see  what  you'll  get  then,"  she  told  her  threaten- 
ingly. 

**  Vm  not  going  to  school.  Mummy  said  I  shouldn't  go 
if  I  was  good." 

**  We  shall  see  what  we  shall  see.  Children  as  think 
themselves  everybody  at  home,  gets  whipped  when  they  go 
to  school,"  Nurse  told  her  severely. 

Alex  was  used  to  these  prognostications.  They  did  not 
alarm  her  very  much,  because  she  did  not  think  that  she 
would  be  sent  to  school.  She  knew  instinctively  that  her 
father  disapproved  of  ordinary  girls'  schools,  and  that  her 
mother  disliked  convents,  and  indeed  most  things  that  had 
to  do  with  religion. 

Alex  supposed  that  this  was  because  Lady  Isabel  was  a 
Protestant!  She  thought  that  it  was  much  the  nicest  re- 
ligion to  belong  to,  on  the  whole,  since  it  evidently  imposed 
no  obligations  in  the  nature  of  church-going,  and  she  often 
wondered  why  her  mother  had  let  all  her  children  be 
Catholics,  instead  of  Protestants  like  herself.  It  certainly 
couldn't  be  because  father  cared  which  church  the  children 
went  to,  or  whether  they  went  at  all. 

The  only  person  in  the  house  who  did  seem  to  care  was 
Nurse,  who  took  Alex  and  Barbara  and  Cedric  to  High 
Mass  at  the  Oratory  every  Sunday,  where  there  was  a 
front  bench  reserved  for  them,  with  little  cards  in  brass 
frames  planted  at  intervals  along  the  ledge  in  front  of 
them,  bearing  the  name  of  Sir  Francis  Clare. 

Nurse  put  Barbara  on  one  side  of  her  and  Alex  on  the 
other,  and  Cedric  on  the  outside,  and  was  very  particular 
about  their  kneeling  down  and  standing  up  at  the  right  mo- 
ment, and  keeping  the  prayer-books  open  in  front  of  them. 
Alex  and  Barbara  each  had  a  Garden  of  the  Soul,  but 
Cedric  was  only  allowed  Holy  Childhood  which  had  pic- 
tures and  anecdotes  illustrative  of  Vice  and  Virtue  at  the 
end. 

Alex  knew  all  the  anecdotes  by  heart,  and  preferred  her 
own  grown-up-looking  book  with  its  small,  close  print.    She 

Ii8], 


THE    GAME    OF    CONSEQUENCES 

had  long  since  discovered  that  the  one  matter  over  which 
Nurse  could  be  hoodwinked  was  print,  and  that  she  might 
quite  safely  indulge  herself  in  the  perusal  of  the  pages  de- 
voted to  the  Sacrament  of  Holy  Matrimony,  or  to  a  mys- 
terious ceremony  called  Churching  after  Child-birth,  during 
the  many  dull  portions  of  the  long  service. 

The  only  part  of  Church  that  held  possibilities  was  when 
the  little  bell  rang  at  the  Elevation,  and  every  one  bent  his 
or  her  head  as  far  down  as  it  would  go  over  the  bench. 
Alex  always  looked  up  surreptitiously,  then,  to  see  if  by  any 
chance  a  miracle  was  taking  place,  or  to  watch  Cedric's  in- 
variable manoeuvre  of  hanging  on  to  the  ledge  by  his  teeth 
and  hands  and  trying  to  raise  his  feet  from  the  floor  at  the 
same  time. 

Nurse  was  always  piously  bent  double,  her  face  hidden 
in  her  cotton  gloves,  breathing  stertorously  with  Barbara  on 
the  other  side  devotedly  imitating  her,  even  to  the  produc- 
tion of  strange  sounds  through  her  own  tightly-compressed 
lips. 

After  that,  Alex  always  knew  that  the  end  of  Church  was 
near,  and  that  as  soon  as  the  priest  had  taken  up  his  little 
square  headgear  and  faced  the  congregation  for  the  last  time, 
Nurse  would  begin  to  poke  her  violently,  as  a  sign  that  she 
was  to  get  up  and  to  make  Cedric  pick  up  his  cap  and  his 
gloves. 

Then  came  the  genuflection  as  they  filed  out  between  the 
benches,  and  Nurse  was  always  very  particular  that  this 
should  be  done  properly,  frequently  pressing  a  heavy  hand 
on  Alex's  shoulder  until  her  knee  bumped  painfully  against 
the  stone  floor.  The  final  ceremony  connected  with  the 
children's  religion  took  place  at  the  door,  when  Cedric  had 
to  make  his  way  through  rustling  skirts  and  an  occasional 
pair  of  black  trousers  to  the  big  stone  basin  of  holy  water. 
Into  this,  standing  on  tiptoe  with  immense  difficulty,  he 
plunged  as  much  of  his  hand  as  was  necessary  to  satisfy 
the  sharp  inspection  of  Nurse  when  he  returned,  proffer- 
ing dripping  fingers  to  her  and  to  his  sisters. 

[19] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


The  last  perfunctory  sign  of  the  cross  made  then,  the 
worst  of  Sunday,  in  Alex's  opinion,  was  over. 

Roast  beef  and  Yorkshire  pudding  for  dinner  was  pleas- 
ant. Mademoiselle  did  not  come  in  the  afternoon,  and 
Nurse  generally  went  out  and  left  Emily  in  charge.  In  the 
summer  she  took  the  children  to  sit  in  the  Square  garden  — 
the  Park  on  Sundays  was  not  allowed  —  and  in  the  winter 
they  always  walked  as  far  as  the  Albert  Memorial,  for  which 
Cedric  entertained  a  great  admiration. 

Sunday  was  Lady  Isabel's  At  Home  day  and  the  children, 
except  during  the  season,  always  went  down  to  the  drawing- 
room  after  tea,  Alex  and  Barbara  in  pale,  rose-coloured 
frocks  with  innumerable  frills  at  throat  and  wrists,  and  a 
small  pad  fastened  under  each  skirt  so  that  it  might  stand 
well  out  at  the  back.  Cedric,  like  most  other  little  boys  of 
his  age  and  standing,  was  forced  to  wear  a  Lord  Fauntleroy 
suit,  from  which  his  cropped  bullet  head  and  spectacles 
emerged  incongruously. 

The  half-hour  in  the  drawing-room  was  not  enjoyed  by 
the  others  as  it  was  by  Alex,  especially  if  there  were  many 
visitors.  She  would  lean  against  Lady  Isabel  confidently, 
and  hear  people  say  how  like  she  was  to  her  mother,  which 
always  delighted  her.  Her  mother  looked  so  pretty,  sitting 
on  the  sofa  with  her  fringe  beautifully  curled  and  a  lovely 
dress  that  was  half  a  teagown,  the  tight  bodice  coming  down 
into  a  sharp  point  in  front  and  behind,  and  the  skirt  falling 
into  long  folds,  with  a  train  sweeping  the  ground,  and  huge 
loops  and  bows  of  soft  ribbon  draping  it  cross-wise. 

Barbara  was  incurably  shy,  and  poked  her  head  when 
she  was  spoken  to,  but  very  few  people  took  as  much  notice 
of  her  as  of  talkative  Alex  or  pretty  little  Archie,  who  was 
all  blue  ribbons  and  fearless  smiles.  And  before  very  long 
Lady  Isabel  was  sure  to  say : 

"  Now,  you'd  better  run  back  to  the  nursery,  hadn't  you, 
darlings?  or  Nurse  will  be  comin'  down  in  search  of  you. 
I've  got  the  most  invaluable  old  dragon  for  them,"  she  gen- 

[20], 


THE    GAME    OF    CONSEQUENCES 

erally  added  to  her  friends.  *'  She's  been  with  us  since 
Alex  was  a  baby,  and  rules  the  whole  house." 

"  Oh,  don't  send  them  away ! "  one  of  the  visiting  ladies 
would  exclaim  politely.     ''  Such  darlings !  " 

"  Oh,  but  I  must !  Their  father  won't  hear  of  my  spoil- 
in'  them.     Now  run  along,  infants." 

Cedric  and  Barbara  were  only  too  ready  to  obey,  though 
it  was  understood  that  Lady  Isabel's  "  run  along "  only 
meant  a  very  ceremonious  departure  from  the  room,  Bar- 
bara taking  little  Archie  by  the  hand  and  leading  him  to 
the  door,  where  they  both  dropped  the  obeisance  consid- 
ered "  picturesque,"  and  Cedric  making  an  unwilling  prog- 
ress to  execute  his  carefully  practised  bow  before  each  one 
of  the  ladies  scattered  about  the  big  room. 

If  Alex,  however,  was  enjoying  herself,  and  getting  the 
notice  that  her  soul  loved,  she  always  said  in  a  pleading 
whisper,  loud  enough  to  be  heard  by  two  or  three  people 
besides  her  mother: 

"  Oh,  do  let  me  stay  with  you  a  little  longer,  mummy. 
Don't  send  me  upstairs  yet !  " 

"  How  sweet !     Do  let  her  stay,  dear  Lady  Isabel." 

"  You  mustn't  encourage  me  to  spoil  her.  She  ought  to  go 
up  with  the  others." 

"  Just  for  this  once,  mummy." 

"  Well,  just  for  this  once,  perhaps.  After  all,"  said 
Lady  Isabel  apologetically,  "  she  is  the  eldest.  She'll  be 
comin'  out  before  I  know  where  I  am ! " 

And  Alex  would  enjoy  the  privilege  of  being  the  eld- 
est, and  sit  beside  her  mother,  listening  to  the  conversation, 
and  sometimes  joining  in  with  remarks  that  she  thought 
might  be  acclaimed  as  amusing  or  original,  or  even 
merely  precocious.  No  wonder  that  the  nursery  greeted 
her  return  with  disdain.  Even  Emily  called  her 
"  drawing-room  child,"  and  by  her  contempt  brought  Alex' 
ready  tears  of  mortified  vanity  to  the  surface.  But  it 
was   much  worse  on   the   rare   Sunday  afternoons  when 

[21] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


Nurse  was  in,  when  she  would  greatly  resent  the  slight  to 
Barbara  if  she  was  sent  up  from  the  drawing-room  before 
her  sister. 

"  Working  on  your  mamma  to  spoil  you  like  that,  just  be- 
cause you're  a  couple  of  years  older ! "  Nurse  would  say, 
pulling  the  comb  fiercely  through  Alex'  hair  as  she  went  to 
bed. 

"  Fm  three  whole  years  older." 

"  Don't  you  contradict  me  like  that,  Alex.  I'm  not  going 
to  have  any  showing-oflf  up  here,  I  can  tell  you.  You  can 
keep  those  airs  and  graces  for  your  mamma's  friends  in  the 
drawing-room." 

Alex  generally  went  to  bed  in  tears. 

If  Nurse  had  not  been  scolding  her,  then  Barbara  had 
been  quarrelling  with  her.  They  always  quarrelled  when- 
ever Barbara  ventured  to  differ  from  Alex  and  take  up  an 
attitude  of  her  own,  or  still  more  when  Barbara  and  Cedric 
made  an  alliance  together  and  excluded  Alex's  autocratic 
ruling  of  their  games. 

**  But  it  is  for  your  good,"  she  would  tell  them  passion- 
ately. **  I  want  to  show  you  a  better  way.  It'll  be  much 
more  fun  if  you  do  it  my  way  —  you'll  see." 

But  they  did  not  want  to  see. 

Their  obstinacy  always  brought  to  Alex  the  same  sense  of 
incredulous,  resentful  fury.  How  could  they  not  want  to 
be  shown  the  best  way  of  doing  things,  when  she  knew  it 
and  they  didn't?  And,  of  course,  she  always  did  know  it. 
Was  she  not  the  eldest? 

It  was  not  till  Alex  was  almost  thirteen  that  her  belief 
in  her  own  infallibility  as  eldest  received  a  rude  shock. 

She  nearly  killed  Barbara. 

It  was  the  first  week  of  August,  and  Sir  Francis  and  Lady 
Isabel  had  gone  to  Scotland.  The  children  were  going  to 
the  sea  with  Nurse  on  the  following  day,  and  took  advan- 
tage of  her  state  of  excitement  over  the  packing,  and  the 
emptiness  of  the  downstair  rooms,  to  play  at  circus  on  the 
stairs.    Emily  only  said,  "  Now  don't  go  hurting  yourselves, 

[22]. 


THE    GAME    OF.    CONSEQUENCES 

whatever  you  do,  or  there'll  be  no  seaside  tomorrow,"  and 
then  went  back  to  amuse  Pamela,  who  was  crying  and  rest- 
less from  the  heat. 

"  I'll  tell  you  what !  "  said  Alex.  "  We'll  have  tight-rope 
dancing.  I'm  tired  of  learned  pigs  and  things  like  that — " 
This  last  impersonation  having  been  perseveringly  rendered 
by  Cedric  with  much  shuffling  and  snorting  over  a  pack  of 
cards. 

"  Give  me  the  skipping-rope,  Barbara." 

"  Why  ?  "  said  Barbara,  whining. 

"  Because  I  say  so,"  replied  her  sister,  stamping  her  foot, 
**  I've  got  an  idea." 

•*  It's  my  skipping-rope." 

"But  if  you  don't  give  it  to  me  we  can't  have  the  tight- 
rope dancing,"  said  Alex  in  despair. 

**  I  don't  care.  Why  should  you  do  tight-rope  dancing 
with  my  skipping-rope  ?  " 

"  You  shall  do  it  first  —  you  shall  do  it  all  yourself,  if 
you'll  only  let  me  show  you,"  Alex  cried  in  an  agony  of 
impatience. 

On  this  inducement  Barbara  slowly  parted  with  her  skip- 
ping-rope, and  let  Alex  knot  it  hastily  and  insecurely  to  the 
newel  post  on  the  first  landing  above  the  hall. 

'*  Now  just  get  up  on  to  the  post,  Barbara,  and  I'll  hold 
the  other  end  of  the  rope  like  this,  and  you'll  see  — " 

''  But  I  can't,  I  should  fall  off." 

"  Don't  be  such  a  little  muff;  I'll  hold  you  on." 

'*  No,  no  —  I'm  frightened.     Let  Cedric  do  it." 

*'  No,"  said  Cedric.  "  I'm  being  a  learned  pig."  He 
went  down  the  short  flight  of  stairs  and  sat  firmly  down 
upon  the  tiled  floor  with  the  pack  of  cards  out-spread  before 
him. 

"  Now  come  on,  Barbara,"  Alex  commanded  her ;  "  I'll 
hold  you." 

Between  hoisting  and  pulling  and  Barbara's  own  dread 
of  disobeying  her,  Alex  got  her  sister  into  a  kneeling  posi- 
tion on  the  broad  flat  top  of  the  newel  post. 

[23] 


CONSEQUENCES 


'*  Now  stand  up,  and  then  I'll  hold  out  the  rope.  You'll 
be  the  famous  tight-rope  dancer  crossing  the  Falls  of  Ni- 
agara." 

"  Alex,  Fm  frightened." 

"What  of,  silly?  If  you  did  fall  it's  only  a  little  way 
on  to  the  stairs,  and  I'll  catch  you.  Besides,  you'll  feel 
much  safer  when  you're  standing  up." 

Barbara,  facing  the  stairs,  and  with  her  back  to  the  alarm- 
ing void  between  her  perch  and  the  hall-floor,  rose  trembling 
to  her  feet. 

"You  look  splendid,"  said  Alex.  "Now  then!"  She 
jerked  at  the  rope,  and  at  the  same  instant  Barbara  screamed 
and  tried  to  clutch  at  her. 

Alex  caught  hold  of  her  sister's  ankles,  felt  Barbara's 
weight  slip  suddenly,  and  screamed  aloud  as  a  shriek  and 
crash  that  seemed  simultaneous  proclaimed  Barbara's  fall 
backwards  into  the  hall. 

Cedric  and  Barbara  in  a  confused  struggling  heap  on  the 
floor  —  doors  opening  upstairs  and  in  the  basement  —  the 
flying  feet  of  the  servants  —  all  was  an  agonized  nightmare 
to  Alex  until  Barbara,  limp  and  inert  on  Nurse's  lap,  sud- 
denly began  to  scream  and  cry,  calling  out,  "  My  back !  my 
back!" 

They  hushed  her  at  last,  and  Nurse  carried  her  into  the 
boudoir,  which  was  the  nearest  room,  and  laid  her  down 
on  the  broad  sofa.  Then  Alex  became  aware  of  a  monoto- 
nous sound  that  had  struck  on  her  ear  without  penetrating 
to  her  senses  ever  since  the  accident  happened. 

"  My  spectacles  are  broken.  You've  broken  my  spec- 
tacles," reiterated  a  lamentable  voice. 

"  You  horrid,  heartless  little  boy,  Cedric !  When  poor 
Barbara  — "     Sobs  choked  her. 

"  I  like  that !  "  said  Cedric.  "  When  it  was  all  you  that 
made  her  fall  at  all  —  and  break  my  spectacles." 

"  What's  that  ?  "  said  Nurse,  miraculously  reappearing. 
"  All  you,  was  it  ?  I  might  have  known  it,  you  mischievous 
wicked  child.     Tell  me  what  happened,  this  minute." 

[24]. 


THE    GAME    OF   CONSEQUENCES 

But  Alex  was  screaming  and  writhing  on  the  floor,  feeling 
as  though  she  must  die  of  such  misery,  and  it  was  Cedric 
who  gave  the  assembled  household  a  judicial  version  of  the 
accident. 

The  doctor  came  and  telegrams  were  sent  to  Scotland, 
which  brought  back  Lady  Isabel,  white-faced  and  tearful, 
and  Sir  Francis,  very  stern  and  monosyllabic. 

"  Father,  my  spectacles  are  broken,"  cried  Cedric  ear- 
nestly, running  to  meet  them,  but  they  did  not  seem  to  hear 
him. 

"  Where  is  she.  Nurse  ?  "  said  Lady  Isabel. 

"  In  the  boudoir,  my  lady,  and  better,  thank  Heaven.  The 
doctor  says  her  back'U  get  right  again  in  time." 

Alex,  hanging  shaking  over  the  balustrade,  saw  that  Nurse 
was  making  faces  as  though  she  were  crying.  But  when  she 
came  upstairs,  after  a  long  time  spent  with  Lady  Isabel  in  the 
boudoir,  and  saw  Alex,  her  face  was  quite  hard  again,  and 
she  gave  her  a  push  and  said,  "  It's  no  use  crying  those 
crocodile  tears  now.  You  should  have  thought  of  that 
before  trying  to  kill  Barbara  the  way  you  did." 

"  I  didn't,  I  didn't,"  sobbed  Alex. 

But  nobody  paid  any  attention  to  her. 

Good-natured  Emily  was  sent  away,  because  Nurse  said 
she  wasn't  fit  to  be  trusted,  and  Cook,  who  was  Emily's  aunt, 
and  very  angry  about  it  all,  told  Alex  that  it  was  all  her 
fault  if  poor  Emily  never  got  another  place  at  all.  Every- 
thing was  Alex'  fault. 

There  was  no  going  to  the  seaside,  even  after  Barbara  was 
pronounced  better.  But  Lady  Isabel,  who,  Nurse  said,  had 
been  given  a  dreadful  shock  by  Alex'  wickedness,  was 
going  into  the  country,  and  would  take  Archie  and  the  baby 
with  her,  if  they  could  get  a  new  nursery-maid  at  once. 

"  And  me  and  Cedric  ?  "  asked  Alex,  trembling. 

"  Cedric  doesn't  give  me  no  trouble,  as  you  very  well  know, 
and  he'll  stay  here  and  help  me  amuse  poor  little  Barbara,  as 
has  always  got  on  with  him  so  nicely." 

"  Shall  I  stay  and  play  with  Barbara  too  ?  " 

[253 


CONSEQ UENCES 


"  She's  a  long  way  from  playing  yet,"  Nurse  returned 
grimly.  "  And  I  should  think  the  sight  of  you  would  throw 
her  into  a  fit,  after  what's  passed." 

"  But  what  will  happen  to  me,  Nurse  ?  "  sobbed  Alex. 

"  Your  Papa  will  talk  to  you,"  said  Nurse. 

Such  a  thing  had  never  happened  to  any  of  the  children 
before,  but  Alex,  trembling  and  sick  from  crying,  found  her- 
self confronting  Sir  Francis  in  the  dining-room. 

"  I  am  going  to  send  you  to  school,  Alex,"  he  told  her. 
"  How  old  are  you  ?  " 

"  Twelve." 

"  Then  I  hope,"  said  Sir  Francis  gravely,  "  that  you  are 
old  enough  to  understand  what  a  terrible  thing  it  is  to  be 
sent  from  home  in  disgrace  for  such  a  reason.  I  am  told 
that  you  have  the  deplorable  reputation  of  originating  quar- 
rels with  your  brothers  and  sister,  who,  but  for  you,  would 
lead  the  normal  existence  of  happily-circumstanced  chil- 
dren." 

Alex  was  terrified.  She  could  not  answer  these  terrible 
imputations,  and  began  to  cry  convulsively. 

"  I  see,"  said  Sir  Francis,  "  that  you  are  sensible  of  the 
appalling  lengths  to  which  this  tendency  has  led  you.  Even 
now,  I  can  scarcely  believe  it  —  a  harmless,  gentle  child  like 
your  little  sister,  who,  I  am  assured,  has  never  done  you 
wilful  injury  in  her  life  —  that  you  should  deliberately  en- 
danger her  life  and  her  reason  in  such  a  fashion." 

He  paused,  as  though  he  were  waiting  for  Alex  to  speak, 
but  she  could  not  say  anything. 

"If  your  repentance  is  sincere,  as  I  willingly  assume  it  to 
be,  your  future  behaviour  must  be  such  as  to  lead  us  all,  par- 
ticularly your  poor  little  sister,  to  forget  this  terrible  be- 
ginning." 

''Will  Barbara  get  well?" 

"  By  the  great  mercy  of  Heaven,  and  owing  to  her  extreme 
youth,  we  are  assured  by  the  doctor  that  a  year  or  two  will 
entirely  correct  the  injury  to  the  spine.  Had  it  been  other- 
wise, Alex  — "    Sir  Francis  looked  at  his  daughter  in  silence. 

[26] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


"  When  thanking  Heaven  for  the  mercy  which  has  preserved 
your  sister's  life,"  he  said  gently,  "  I  hope  you  will  reflect 
seriously  upon  redeeming  this  action  by  your  future  con- 
duct." 

"  Oh,  I'm  sorry  —  oh,  shall  you  ever  forgive  me  ?  "  gasped 
Alex,  amongst  her  sobs. 

'*  I  do  forgive  you,  my  child,  as  does  your  mother,  and  as 
I  am  convinced  that  little  Barbara  will  do.  But  I  cannot, 
nor  would  I  if  I  could,  avert  from  you  the  consequence  of 
your  own  act,"  said  her  father. 

Barbara  did  forgive  Alex,  in  a  little,  plaintive,  superior 
voice,  as  she  lay  very  white  and  straight  in  bed.  She  was  to 
stay  quite  flat  on  her  back  for  at  least  a  year,  the  doctor 
said,  and  she  need  do  no  lessons,  and  later  she  would  be 
taken  out  in  a  long  flat  carriage  that  could  be  pushed  from 
behind,  then  she  would  be  able  to  walk  again,  and  her  back 
would  be  quite  straight. 

**  If  she'd  been  a  hunchback,  we  might  have  played  circus 
again,  and  I  could  have  been  the  learned  pig,"  said  Cedric 
reflectively. 

Alex  went  to  school  at  the  end  of  September. 

And  that  was  her  first  practical  experience  of  the  game  of 
Consequences,  as  played  by  the  freakish  hand  of  fate. 


[271 


II 
School 

ALEX'  schooldays  were  marked  by  a  series  of  emo- 
tional episodes. 
In  her  scale  of  values,  only  the  personal  element 
counted  for  anything.  She  was  intelligent  and  industrious 
at  her  classes  when  she  wished  to  gain  the  approbation  of  an 
attractive  class-mistress,  and  idle  and  inattentive  when  she 
wanted  to  please  the  pretty  girl  with  yellow  hair,  who  sat 
next  her  and  read  a  story-book  under  cover  of  a  French 
grammar. 

Alex  did  not  read ;  she  wanted  to  make  the  yellow-haired 
girl  look  at  her  and  smile  at  her.  She  thought  Queenie 
Torrance  beautiful,  though  her  beauty  did  not  strike  Alex 
until  after  she  had  fallen  a  helpless  victim  to  one  of  those 
violent,  irrational  attractions  for  one  of  her  own  sex,  that 
are  apt  to  assail  feminine  adolescence. 

**  I  hope  that  you  will  find  some  nice  little  companions  at 
Liege,"  Sir  Francis  had  gravely  told  his  daughter  in  valedic- 
tion, "  but  remember  that  exclusive  friendships  are  not  to  be 
desired.  Friendly  with  all,  familiar  with  none,"  said  Sir 
Francis,  voicing  the  ideal  of  his  class  and  of  his  period. 

As  well  tell  a  stream  not  to  flow  downhill.  Nothing  but 
the  most  exclusive  and  inordinate  of  attachments  lay  within 
the  scope  of  Alex'  emotional  capacities.  She  was  incapable 
alike  of  asking  or  of  bestowing  in  moderation. 

Theoretically  she  would  tell  herself  that  she  would  give 
all,  trust,  confidence,  love,  friendship,  and  ask  for  nothing  in 
return.  Practically  she  suffered  tortures  of  jealousy  if  the 
loved  one  addressed  a  word  or  smile  to  any  but  herself,  and 
cried  herself  to  sleep  night  after  night  in  the  certainty  of 
loving  infinitely  more  than  she  was  loved. 

[28] 


SCHOOL 


The  material  side  of  her  life  as  a  pensionnaire  at  the 
Liege  convent  made  very  little  impression  upon  her,  except- 
ing in  relation  to  the  emotional  aspect,  of  which  she  was 
never  unaware. 

To  the  end  of  her  days,  the  clean,  pungent  smell  of  a  cer- 
tain polish  used  upon  the  immense  spaces  of  bare  parquet 
cire  all  over  the  building,  would  serve  to  recall  the  vivid 
presentment  of  the  tall  Belgian  postulante  whose  duty  it  was 
to  apply  it  with  a  huge  mop,  and  whom,  from  a  distance  only 
to  be  appreciated  by  those  who  know  the  immensity  of  the 
gulf  that  in  the  convent  world  separates  the  novice  from 
the  pupils,  Alex  had  worshipped  blindly. 

And  the  acrid,  yet  not  unpleasant  taste  of  comfiture  thinly 
spread  over  thick  slices  of  brown  bread,  would  remind  her 
with  equal  vividness  of  the  daily  three  o'clock  interval  for 
gouter,  with  Queenie  Torrance  pacing  beside  her  in  the 
garden  quadrangle,  one  hand  of  each  rolled  into  her  black- 
stuff  apron  to  try  and  keep  warm,  and  the  other  grasping  the 
enormous  double  tartine  that  formed  the  afternoon's  refec- 
tion. 

Even  the  slight,  steady  sound  of  hissing  escaping  from  a 
gas  jet  of  which  the  flame  is  turned  as  high  as  it  will  go, 
stood  to  Alex  for  the  noisy  evening  recreation,  spent  in  the 
enforced  and  detested  amusement  oi  la  ronde,  when  her 
only  preoccupation  was  to  place  herself  by  the  object  of  her 
adoration,  for  the  grasp  of  her  hand  in  its  regulation  cotton 
glove,  as  the  circle  of  girls  moved  drearily  round  and  round 
singing  perfunctorily. 

The  tuneless  tune  of  those  rondes  remained  with  Alex 
long  after  the  words  had  lost  the  savour  of  irony  with  which 
novelty  had  once  invested  them. 

*"'  Quelle  horrible  attente 
D'etre  postulante.  .  .  . 
Quel  sup p lice 
D'etre  une  novice 
Ah!  quel  comble  d'horreur 
Devenir  soeur  de  choeur.  .  .   " 

[29] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


Alex' .symbols  were  not  romantic  ones,  but  there  was  no 
romance  in  the  life  of  the  Liege  convent,  save  what  she 
brought  to  it  herself.  Even  the  memory  of  the  great  square 
verger,  in  the  middle  of  gravelled  alleys,  brought  to  her  mind 
for  sole  token  of  summer,  only  her  horror  of  the  immense 
pale-red  slugs  that  crawled  slowly  and  interminably  out  and 
across  the  paths  in  the  eternal  rains  of  the  Belgian  climate. 
Nothing  mattered  but  people. 

And  of  all  the  people  in  the  world,  only  those  whom  one 
loved. 

Thus  Alex'  sweeping,  unformulated  conviction,  holding  in 
it  all  the  misapplication  of  an  essential  force,  squandered  for 
lack  of  a  sense  of  proportion. 

She  despised  herself  secretly,  both  for  her  intense  craving 
for  affection  and  for  her  prodigality  in  bestowing  it.  She 
was  like  a  child  endeavouring  to  pour  a  great  pailful  of 
water  into  a  very  little  cup. 

Waste  and  disaster  were  the  inevitable  results. 

The  real  love  of  Alex'  young  enthusiasm,  fair-haired 
Queenie  Torrance,  was  preceded  by  her  inarticulate,  un- 
reasoned adoration  for  the  Belgian  postulante.  But  the 
Belgian  postulante  was  never  visible,  save  at  a  distance,  so 
that  even  Alex'  unreasonable  affections  found  nothing  to 
feed  upon. 

There  was  a  French  girl,  much  older  than  herself,  for 
whom  Alex  then  conceived  an  enthusiasm.  Marie-Angele 
smiled  on  her  and  encouraged  the  infatuation  of  the  curi- 
ously un-English  little  English  girl.  But  she  gave  her  noth- 
ing in  return.  Alex  knew  it,  and  recklessly  spent  all  her 
weekly  pocket-money  on  flowers  and  sweets  for  Marie- 
Angele,  thinking  that  the  gifts  would  touch  her  and  awaken 
in  her  an  affection  that  it  was  not  her  nature  to  bestow,  least 
of  all  on  an  ardent  and  ungainly  child,  six  years  her  junior. 
Alex  shed  many  tears  for  Marie-Angele,  and  years  later 
read  some  words  that  suddenly  and  swiftly  recalled  the  girl 
who  passed  in  and  out  of  her  life  in  less  than  a  year. 


[30]. 


SCHOOL 


"  /  love  you  for  your  few  caresses, 
I  love  you  for  my  many  tears." 

The  lines,  indeed,  were  curiously  typical  of  the  one-sided 
relations  into  which  Alex  entered  so  rashly  and  so  inevitably 
throughout  her  schooldays. 

She  was  fifteen,  and  had  been  nearly  three  years  at  Liege, 
when  Queenie  Torrance  came.  She  was  Alex'  senior  by  a 
year,  and  the  only  other  English  girl  in  the  school  at  that 
time.  Alex  was  told  to  look  after  her,  and  went  to  the  task 
with  a  certain  naive  eagerness,  that  she  always  brought  to 
bear  upon  any  personal  equation.  In  an  hour,  she  was 
secretly  combating  an  enraptured  certainty,  of  which  she 
felt  nevertheless  ashamed,  that  she  had  found  at  last  the 
ideal  object  on  whom  to  expend  <he  vehement  powers  of 
affection  for  which  she  was  always  seeking  an  outlet. 

Queenie  was  slight,  very  fair,  with  a  full,  serious  oval 
face,  innocent  grey  eyes  set  very  far  apart,  and  the  high, 
rounded  forehead  and  small,  full-lipped  mouth,  of  a  type 
much  in  vogue  in  England  at  the  time  of  the  Regency.  This 
was  the  more  marked  by  the  thick  flaxen  hair  which  fell 
back  from  her  face,  and  over  her  shoulders  into  natural 
heavy  ringlets.  She  was  not  very  pretty,  although  she  was 
often  thought  so,  but  she  was  charged  with  a  certain  animal 
magnetism,  almost  inseparable  from  her  type.  Half  the 
girls  in  the  school  adored  her.  Queenie,  already  attractive 
to  men,  and  sent  to  the  convent  in  Belgium  in  reality  on 
that  account,  nominally  for  a  year's  finishing  before  her 
debut  in  London  society,  was  for  the  most  part  scornful  of 
these  girlish  admirers,  but  Alex  she  admitted  to  her  friend- 
ship. 

She  was  precociously  aware  that  intimacy  with  Lady  Isa- 
bel Clare's  daughter  was  likely  to  accrue  to  her  own  advan- 
tage later  on  in  London. 

The  genius  for  sympathy  which  led  Alex  to  innumerable 
small  sacrifices  and  tender  smoothings  of  difficulties  for  her 
idol,  Queenie  at  first  received  with  a  graceful  gratitude  which 

[31] 


CONSEQUENCES 


yet  held  in  it  something  of  suspicion,  as  though  she  wondered 
what  return  would  presently  be  exacted  of  her. 

But  it  became  obvious  that  Alex  expected  nothing,  and 
received  with  eager  thankfulness  the  slightest  recognition  of 
her  devotion. 

Queenie  despised  her,  but  was  lavish  of  gentle  thanks  and 
caressing  exclamations.  Hers  was  not  a  nature  ever  to 
make  the  mistake  of  killing  the  goose  that  laid  the  golden 
eggs. 

Finding  to  her  concealed  astonishment  that  Alex  only 
asked  toleration,  or  at  the  most  acceptance  of  her  ardent 
devotion,  and  was  transported  at  the  slightest  occasional 
token  of  affection  in  return,  Queenie  stinted  her  of  neither. 
It  would  have  seemed  to  her  the  most  irrational  folly  to 
discourage  a  love,  however  one-sided,  that  found  its  expres- 
sion in  tireless  sympathy,  endless  championship,  and  unlim- 
ited material  gifts  and  help  of  any  or  every  description. 
Alex  did  all  that  she  could  of  Queenie's  lessons,  made  her 
bed  and  mended  her  clothes  for  her  whenever  she  could  do 
so  undetected  by  the  authorities,  spent  her  pocket-money 
on  gratifying  Queenie's  shameless  and  inordinate  passion  for 
sweet  things,  and  once  or  twice  told  lies  badly  and  unsuccess- 
fully, to  shield  Queenie  from  the  effects  of  her  own  laziness 
and  constant  evasion  of  regulations. 

Alex  had  been  taught,  in  common  with  every  other  child 
of  her  upbringing  and  nationality,  that  to  tell  a  lie  was  the 
worst  crime  to  which  a  self-respecting  human  being  can 
stoop.  She  also  believed  that  a  person  who  has  told  a  lie 
is  a  liar,  and  that  all  liars  go  to  Hell.  Yet  by  some  utterly 
illogical  perversity  of  which  she  was  hardly  even  aware,  it 
did  not  shock  or  very  much  distress  her,  to  find  that  Queenie 
Torrance  told  lies,  and  told  them,  moreover,  with  an  air  of 
quiet  and  convincing  candour  that  placed  them  in  a  very 
different  category  to  Alex'  own  halting,  improbable  fibs, 
delivered  with  a  scarlet  face  and  a  manifest  air  of  hunting 
for  further  corroboration  as  she  spoke. 

[32] 


SCHOOL 


In  the  extraordinary  scale  of  moral  values  unconsciously 
held  by  Alex,  there  were  apparently  no  abstract  standards 
of  right  and  wrong.  Where  she  loved,  though  she  might, 
against  her  own  will  see  defects,  she  was  incapable  of  con- 
demning. 

Queenie  took  a  curious,  detached  interest  in  coldly  grati- 
fying her  vanity,  by  seeking  to  test  the  lengths  of  extrava- 
gance to  which  Alex'  admiration  would  go. 

"  Supposing  I  quarrelled  with  every  one  here,  and  they  all 
sent  me  to  Coventry  —  whose  part  would  you  take  ?  " 

"  Yours,  of  course." 

"  But  if  I  were  in  the  wrong?  " 

"  That  wouldn't  make  any  difference.  In  fact,  you'd  need 
it  more  if  you  were  in  the  wrong." 

"  I  don't  see  that !  "  Queenie  exclaimed.  "  If  I  were  in 
the  wrong  I  should  have  deserved  it." 

"  But  that  would  make  it  all  the  worse  for  you.  It's  al- 
ways the  people  who  are  in  the  wrong  who  need  most  to 
have  their  part  taken,"  Alex  explained  confusedly,  yet 
voicing  an  intimate  conviction. 

'*  I  don't  think  you  have  much  idea  of  justice,  Alex,"  said 
Queenie  drily. 

The  conversation  made  Alex  very  miserable.  It  was 
characteristic  of  her  want  of  logic  that  while  she  reproached 
herself  secretly  for  her  own  impiety  in  setting  the  objects  of 
her  effection  far  above  what  she  conceived  to  be  the  abstract 
standard  of  right  and  wrong,  yet  she  never  questioned  but 
that  any  love  bestowed  upon  herself  would  be  measured  out 
in  direct  proportion  to  her  merits. 

And  despairingly  did  Alex  sometimes  review  the  smallness 
of  her  deserts. 

She  was  disobedient,  untruthful,  quarrelsome,  irreligious. 
It  seemed  to  Alex  that  there  was  no  fault  to  which  she  could 
not  lay  claim.  Her  lack  of  elementary  religious  teaching 
put  her  at  a  disadvantage  in  the  convent  atmosphere,  and 
made  its  frequent  religious  services  and  instructions  so  te- 

[33]' 


CONSEQUENCES 


dious  to  her,  that  she  was  in  constant  disgrace  for  her  weary, 
inattentive  attitudes,  not  unjustly  designated  as  irreverent, 
in  the  chapel. 

She  was  not  at  all  popular  with  the  nuns.  The  "  influ- 
ence "  which  her  class-mistress  wielded  over  so  many  of  the 
pupils,  or  the  "  interest "  which  the  English  Assistant  Supe- 
rior would  so  willingly  have  extended  to  her  youthful  com- 
patriot were  alike  without  effect  upon  Alex.  She  was  not 
drawn  to  any  of  these  holy,  black-clad  women,  to  one  or 
other  of  whom  almost  all  her  French  and  Belgian  and  Amer- 
ican contemporaries  devoted  a  rather  stereotyped  enthusiasm. 

Had  the  vagrant  fancy  of  Alex  lighted  upon  any  one  of 
the  elder  nuns  charged  with  the  direction  of  the  school,  the 
attraction  would  have  been  discreetly  permitted,  if  not  ad- 
mittedly sanctioned,  by  the  authorities.  It  would  almost 
inevitably  have  led  Alex  to  an  awakening  of  religious  sensi- 
bilities and  the  desirability  of  this  result  would  have  out- 
weighed, even  if  it  did  not  absolutely  obscure  in  the  eyes  of 
the  nuns,  the  excessive  danger  of  obtaining  such  a  result  by 
such  means. 

But  the  stars  in  their  courses  had  designed  that  Alex 
should  regard  the  Mesdames  Marie  Baptiste  and  Marie 
Evangeliste  of  her  convent  days  with  indifference,  and  de- 
vote her  ardent  temperament  and  precocious  sensibilities  to 
the  worship  of  Queenie  Torrance. 

The  enthusiasm  was  smiled  upon  by  no  one,  and  thereby 
became  the  more  inflamed. 

"  Je  n'aime  pas  ces  amities  particulieres,"  said  the  class- 
mistress  of  Queenie  Torrance  severely,  to  which  Miss 
Torrance  replied  with  polite  distress  that  she  was  powerless 
in  the  matter.  It  made  her  ridiculous,  she  disliked  the  con- 
stant infringement  of  rules  to  which  Alex'  pursuit  exposed 
her,  but  —  one  could  not  be  unkind.  She  did  not  know  why 
Alex  Clare  showed  her  especial  affection  —  she  herself  had 
done  nothing  to  encourage  these  indiscreet  displays.  Of 
course,  it  was  pleasant  to  be  liked,  but  one  wished  only  to 

l34] 


SCHOOL 


do  right  about  it.  Queenie  mingled  candour  with  perplex- 
ity, and  succeeded  in  convincing  every  one  with  perfect  com- 
pleteness of  her  entire  innocence  of  anything  but  a  too  potent 
attraction. 

"  Ce  n'est  done  meme  pas  une  amitie  ?  C'est  Alex  qui 
vous  recherche  malgre  vous !  "  exclaimed  the  class-mistress. 

Under  this  aspect  the  question  soon  presented  itself  alike 
to  the  pensionnat  and  its  authorities,  rendering  Alex  ridicu- 
lous. In  a  system  of  surveillance  which  admitted  of  no 
loophole  for  open  defiance  or  outspoken  rebuke,  Alex*  eva- 
sions of  that  law  of  detachment  which  is  the  primary  one  in 
convent  legislation,  became  the  mark  of  every  blue-ribboned 
enfant  de  Marie  who  wished  to  obtain  a  reputation  for  zeal 
by  reporting  the  defection  of  a  companion  to  her  class- 
mistress. 

It  was  always  Alex  who  was  reported.  Queenie  never 
sought  opportunities  to  snatch  a  hurried  colloquy  during 
recreation,  or  manoeuvred  to  obtain  Alex  as  companion  at 
la  ronde,  or  when  they  played  games  in  the  garden.  She 
never  infringed  one  of  the  strictest  rules  of  the  establish- 
ment, by  giving  presents  unpermitted,  or  purchasing  forbid- 
den sweets  and  chocolate  to  be  given  away  at  the  afternoon 
gputer. 

Queenie  accepted  the  presents,  wrote  tiny  notes  to  Alex 
and  skilfully  gave  them  to  her  unperceived,  and  cut  Alex  to 
the  heart  by  telling  her  sometimes  that  she  made  it  very  hard 
for  one  to  try  and  be  good  and  keep  all  the  rules  and  per- 
haps get  one's  blue  ribbon  next  term. 

These  speeches  were  to  Queenie's  credit,  and  made  Alex 
cry  and  worship  her  more  admiringly  than  ever,  but  they 
did  not  tend  to  lower  the  transparent,  doglike  devotion  with 
which  Alex  would  gaze  at  Queenie's  bent  profile  in  the 
chapel,  utterly  unconscious  of  the  scandal  which  her  mani- 
fest idolatry  was  creating  for  the  severe  nun  in  the  carved 
stall  opposite.  She  was  scolded,  placed  under  strict  obser- 
vation, and  every  obstacle  placed  in  the  way  of  her  exchang- 

[35] 


CONSEQUENCES 


ing  any  word  with  Queenie,  until  she  grew  to  see  herself  as 
a  martyr  to  an  affection  which  every  fresh  prohibition  in- 
creased almost  to  frenzy. 

One  day  she  was  made  the  victim  of  a  form  of  rebuke 
much  dreaded  by  the  pensionnaires.  A  monthly  convocation 
of  the  school  and  mistresses,  officially  known  as  la  reclame 
du  mois,  and  nicknamed  by  the  children  "  the  Last  Judg- 
ment," was  held  in  the  Grande  Salle  downstairs,  with  the 
Superior  making  her  state  entry  after  the  children  had  been 
decorously  seated  in  rows  at  the  end  of  the  long  room,  and 
all  the  other  nuns  who  had  anything  to  do  with  the  school 
had  placed  themselves  gravely  and  with  folded  hands  against 
the  walls. 

They  all  stood  when  the  Superior  came  in,  followed  by 
the  First  Mistress,  carrying  a  sheaf  of  notes  and  a  great 
book,  which  each  pupil  firmly  believed  to  be  devoted  prin- 
cipally to  the  record  of  her  own  progress  through  the 
school. 

Then  the  Superior,  with  inclined  head  and  low,  distinct 
voice,  spoke  a  few  words  of  prayer,  and  settled  herself  in 
the  large  chair  behind  which  the  nuns  clustered  in  orderly 
rows. 

The  children  sat  down  at  the  signal  given,  and  listened,  at 
first  with  smiles  as  the  record  of  the  baby  class  were  read 
aloud  and  each  mite  stood  up  in  her  place  for  all  the  uni- 
verse to  gaze  at  her,  while  the  analysis  of  her  month's  work, 
mental  and  moral,  sounded  with  appalling  distinctness 
through  the  silence. 

"  Bebee  de  Lalonde !  premiere  en  catechisme,  premiere  en 
geographie  .  .  .  calcul,  beaucoup  mieux  .  .  .  elle  y  met 
beaucoup  de  bonne  volonte  I  " 

"  A  la  bonne  heure !  '* 

The  Superior  is  smiling,  every  one  is  smiHng,  Bebee  de 
Lalonde,  her  brown  curls  bobbing  over  her  face,  is  pink  with 
gratification.  Her  young  class-mistress  leans  forward,  the 
white  veil  of  novice  falling  over  her  black  habit. 

"  Ma  Mere  Superieure,  pour  le  mois  de  S.  Joseph,  elle  se 

[36] 


SCHOOL 


corrige  de  cette  vilaine  habitude  de  mordre  ses  ongles.  Elle 
a  fait  de  vrais  efforts.  .  .  ." 

'*  C'est  bien.     Faites  voir.  .  .  .  Venez,  ma  petite." 

Up  the  long  room  marches  Bebee,  two  freshly  washed  tiny- 
pink  hands  thrust  out  proudly  for  the  Superior's  inspection. 

"  Tres  bien,  tres  bien.  Vous  f  erez  bien  attention  au  pouce 
droit,  n'est  pas  ?  " 

The  Superior  is  quite  grave,  however,  every  one  laughs, 
and  then  the  serious  part  of  the  proceedings  begins. 

The  very  little  ones  are  not  nervous.  Most  of  them  are 
good,  even  the  naughty  ones  only  get  a  very  gentle  homily 
from  the  Superior.  Then  their  class-mistress  claps  her 
hands  smartly  and  they  get  up  and  file  out  of  the  room,  it 
not  being  considered  politic  to  let  les  petites  hear  the  record 
of  that  pen  of  black  sheep,  les  moyennes. 

The  indictments  become  more  serious.  Marie  Therese, 
twice  impertinent  to  a  mistress,  taking  no  trouble  over  her 
lessons,  worst  of  all,  taking  no  trouble  to  cure  that  trick  of 
which  we  have  complained  so  often  —  sitting  with  her  knees 
crossed. 

"  Even  in  the  chapel.  Ma  Mere  Superieure." 

This  is  very  bad !  It  is  unladylike,  it  is  against  all  rules, 
it  is  extremely  immodest.  .  .  .  And  what  an  example ! 

Marie  Therese,  says  the  Superior  decisively,  can  aban- 
don all  hope  of  obtaining  the  green  ribbon  of  an  aspirante 
enfant  de  Marie  until  she  has  reformed  her  ways.  The 
mention  of  a  premiere  in  literature  gains  no  approving  smile 
from  any  one  and  Marie  Therese  sits  down  in  tears. 

Gabrielle,  Marthe,  Sadie  —  all  through  the  three  classes 
of  the  moyenne  division  of  the  school,  with  very  few  stain- 
less reports  and  two  or  three  disastrous  ones. 

Then  les  grandes.  The  first  of  these,  in  the  lowest  sec- 
tion, is  a  name  to  which  the  reader,  a  French  woman,  al- 
ways takes  exception.  She  finally  compresses  her  lips  and 
renders  it  as :     "  Kevinnie !  " 

Queenie  is  always  cool  and  unmoved  as  she  stands  up,  and 
Alex  always  looks  at  her.    At  this  particular  seance,  the 

[37] 


CONSEQUENCES 


April  one,  she  took  her  glances  more  or  less  surreptitiously, 
miserably  aware  that  she  had  not  enough  self-control  to 
refrain  from  them  and  so  avoid  risking  a  rebuke  later  on. 

Queenie  held  no  premiere.  She  was  always  last  in  her 
form,  undistinguished  at  music,  drawing,  needlework,  any- 
thing requiring  application  or  talent  alike.  But  her  per- 
fectly serene  complacency  was  more  or  less  justified  by  the 
exaggerated  applause  of  her  companions  at  her  faultless 
"  conduct "  marks  and  the  assurance  of  her  class-mistress, 
always  given  readily,  that  she  was  "  tres  docile,  tres  appli- 
quee." 

Queenie's  popularity  was  independent  of  anything  extra- 
neous to  herself. 

The  Superior  leant  forward  and  asked  a  question  in  a  low 
voice. 

"  Non,  ma  Mere  Superieure,  non." 

The  denial  of  a  possible  accusation,  of  which  Alex  guessed 
the  purport,  was  emphatic.  She  felt  glad  and  relieved,  but 
had  no  suspicions  as  to  the  indictment  following  on  her  own 
name. 

"  Alexandra  Clare,"  said  Mere  Alphonsine  sonorously, 
and  Alex  stood  up. 

She  no  longer  felt  self-conscious  over  the  ordeal,  and  was 
indifferent  to  the  habitual  litany  of  complaints  as  to  her 
unlearnt  lessons,  disregard  of  the  rule  of  silence,  and  fre- 
quent bad  marks  for  disorder  and  unpunctuality.  But  to 
the  accusations  which  she  knew  by  heart,  and  shared  with 
the  majority  of  the  moyenne  class e,  came  a  quite  unexpected 
addition,  hissed  out  with  a  sort  of  dramatic  horror  by  Mere 
Alphonsine : 

"  Alex  recherche  Kevinnie  sans  cesse,  ma  Mere  Supe- 
rieure." 

Only  those  familiar  with  the  code  of  pensionnaire  disci- 
pline in  Belgium  during  the  years  when  Alex  Clare  and  her 
contemporaries  were  at  school,  can  gauge  the  full  heinous- 
ness  of  the  offence,  gravest  in  the  conventual  decalogue. 

[38] 


SCHOOL 


Even  Alex,  although  she  had  been  scolded  and  punished 
and  made  the  subject  of  innumerable  homilies,  some  of 
them  pityingly  reproachful,  and  others  explanatorily  so,  on 
the  same  question,  felt  as  though  she  had  never  before  real- 
ized the  extent  of  her  own  perversion. 

She  stood  up,  her  hands  in  the  regulation  position,  pushed 
under  the  hideous  black-stuff  pelerine  that  fell  from  her 
stiff,  hard,  white  collar  to  the  shapeless  waistband  of  her 
skirt,  the  whole  uniform  carefully  designed  to  conceal  and 
obscure  the  lines  of  the  figure  beneath  it. 

Overwhelmed  with  uncomprehending  misery  and  acute 
shame,  she  heard  two  or  three  of  the  mistresses  add  each  her 
quota,  for  the  most  part  regretfully  and  with  an  evident 
sense  of  duty  overcoming  reluctance,  to  the  evidence  against 
her. 

"  She  seeks  opportunity  to  place  herself  next  to  Queenie 
at  almost  every  recreation,  ma  Mere  Superieure." 

"  I  am  afraid  that  even  in  the  chapel  she  lets  this  folly 
get  the  better  of  her  —  one  can  see  how  she  lets  herself  go 
to  distractions  all  the  time.  .  .  ." 

So  the  charges  went  on. 

The  summing  up  of  Ma  Mere  Superieure  was  icily  con- 
demnatory. She  had  tried  every  means  with  Alex,  had 
spoken  to  her  with  kindness  and  tenderness ;  in  private,  had 
reasoned  with  her  and  finally  threatened  her,  and  now  a 
public  denouncement  must  be  tried,  since  all  these  means 
had  proved  to  be  without  effect. 

Alex  was  principally  conscious  of  the  single,  lightning- 
swift  flash  of  reproach  that  had  shot  from  the  eyes  of 
Queenie  Torrance  into  hers. 

How  silently  and  viciously  Queenie  would  resent  this  pub- 
lic coupling  of  her  immaculate  reputation  with  Alex'  idiotic 
infatuation,  only  Alex  knew. 

With  the  frantic  finality  of  youth,  she  wondered  whether 
she  could  go  on  living.  Oh,  if  only  she  might  die  at  once, 
without  hearing  further  blame  or  reproach,  without  encoun- 

[39]. 


CONSEQUENCES 


tering  the  ridicule  of  her  companions  or  the  cold  withdrawal 
of  Queenie's  precariously-held  friendship.  Alex  cried  her- 
self sick  with  terror  and  shame  and  utterly  ineffectual  re- 
morse. 

The  despair  that  invades  an  undeveloped  being  is  the 
blackest  in  the  world,  because  of  its  utter  want  of  perspec- 
tive. 

Alex  could  see  nothing  beyond  the  present.  She  felt  all 
the  weight  of  an  inexpressible  guilt  upon  her,  and  all  the 
utter  isolation  of  spirit  which  surrounds  the  sinner  who 
stands  exposed  and  condemned. 

She  knew  that  nobody  would  take  her  part.  She  was 
young  enough  to  reflect  forlornly  that  an  accusation  mat- 
tered nothing  if  unjust,  since  the  consciousness  of  innocence 
would  sustain  one,  serene  and  unfaltering,  through  any 
ordeal. 

But  she  had  no  consciousness  of  innocence.  She  saw  her- 
self eternally  different  from  her  companions,  eternally  des- 
tined to  lose  her  way,  wickedly  and  shamefully  she  supposed, 
without  volition  of  her  own  she  knew,  amongst  those  stand- 
ards to  which  the  right  thinking  conformed,  and  which  she, 
only,  failed  to  recognize.  With  sick  wistfulness  Alex  sought 
Queenie's  glance  as  they  came  one  by  one  into  the  refec- 
tory, after  the  reclame  was  over. 

Queenie's  fair,  opaque  face  was  as  colourless  as  ever,  her 
eyes  were  cast  down. 

Frantically,  Alex  willed  her  to  cast  one  look  of  pity  or 
forgiveness  in  her  direction,  but  Queenie  passed  on  to  the 
refectory  where  the  children's  mid-day  meal  was  waiting 
for  them  without  a  sign. 

Amidst  all  the  blur  of  emotions,  passionate  remorse  and 
hopeless  loneliness,  which  made  up  Alex'  schooldays,  that 
Saturday  mid-day  meal  stood  out  in  its  black  despair. 

The  choking  attempts  to  swallow  a  mass  of  vegetable 
cooking,  made  salt  and  sodden  with  her  own  streaming  tears, 
the  sobs  that  strangled  her  and  broke  in  spite  of  all  her 
efforts  into  the  decorous  silence  of  the  refectory,  even  the 

[40] 


SCHOOL 


awed  and  scandalized  glances  that  the  younger  children  cast 
at  her  distorted  face,  remained  saliently  before  her  memory 
for  years. 

At  last  the  nun  in  charge  rose  from  her  place  at  the  end 
of  the  room  and  came  down  and  told  Alex  that  she  might 
leave  the  table.  The  long  progress  down  the  endless  length 
of  the  refectory  destroyed  the  last  remnants  of  Alex'  self- 
control. 

The  tide  of  emotional  agony  that  swept  over  her  was  to 
ebb  and  flow  again,  and  many  times  again. 

But  only  once  or  twice  was  that  high-water  mark  to  be 
reached,  that  bitter  wave  to  engulf  her,  and  each  time  add  to 
the  undermining  of  that  small  stability  of  spirit  with  which 
Alex  had  been  endowed. 

She  left  the  misery  of  that  black  Saturday  behind  her, 
and  was  left  with  her  childish  nerves  a  little  shattered,  her 
childish  confidence  of  outlook  rather  more  overshadowed, 
her  childish  strength  less  steady,  and,  above  all,  set  fast  in 
her  childish  mind  the  ineradicable,  unexplained  conviction 
that  because  she  had  loved  Queenie  Torrance  and  had  been 
punished  and  rebuked  for  it,  therefore  to  love  was  wrong. 


I4i] 


Ill 
Queenie  Torrance 

SCHOOL  days  in  Belgium  went  on,  through  the  steamy, 
rain-sodden  days  of  spring  to  the  end  of  term  and  the 
grandes  vacances  looked  forward  to  with  such  frantic 
eagerness  even  by  the  children  who  liked  the  convent  best. 
Alex  was  again  bitterly  conscious  of  an  utter  want  of  con- 
formity setting  her  apart  from  her  fellow-creatures. 

The  misery  of  parting  for  eight  weeks  from  Queenie  Tor- 
rance overwhelmed  her.     Casually,  Queenie  said : 

"  I  may  not  come  back,  next  term.  I  shall  be  seventeen 
by  then,  and  I  don't  see  why  I  should  be  at  school  any 
longer  if  I  can  get  round  father." 

"What  would  you  do?" 

"  Why,  come  out,  of  course,"  said  Queenie.  "  I  am  quite 
old  enough,  and  every  one  says  I  look  older  than  I  am." 

She  moved  her  head  about  slightly  so  as  to  get  sidelong 
views  of  her  own  reflection  in  the  big  window-pane.  There 
were  no  looking-glasses  at  the  convent. 

It  was  true  that,  in  spite  of  a  skin  smooth  and  unlined  as 
a  baby's  and  the  childish,  semicircular  comb  that  gathered 
back  the  short  flaxen  ringlets  from  her  rounded,  innocent 
brow,  Queenie's  slender,  but  very  well-developed  figure  and 
the  unvarying  opaque  pallor  of  her  complexion,  made  her 
look  infinitely  nearer  maturity  than  the  slim,  long-legged 
American  girls,  or  over-plump,  giggling  French  and  Bel- 
gian ones.  Alex  gazed  at  her  with  mute,  exaggerated  de- 
spair on  her  face. 

**  Your  parents  will  permit  that  you  make  your  debut  at 
once,  yes?"  queried  Marthe  Poupard,  as  one  resigned  to 
the  incredible  folly  and  weakness  of  British  and  American 
parents. 

[42] 


QUEENIE    TORRANCE 

"  I  can  manage  my  father,"  said  Queenie  gently,  and  with 
the  perfect  conviction  of  experience  in  her  voice. 

As  the  day  of  the  breaking-up  drew  nearer,  discipline  in- 
sensibly relaxed,  and  Queenie  suddenly  became  less  averse 
from  responding  in  some  degree  to  Alex'  wistful  advances. 

On  the  last  day,  one  of  broiling  heat,  the  two  spent  the 
afternoon  alone  together  unrebuked,  in  a  corner  of  the  great 
verger  where  the  pupils  were  scattered  in  groups,  feeling  as 
though  the  holidays  had  already  begun. 

"I  shall  have  the  journey  with  you,"  said  Alex,  pite- 
ously. 

'*  Madame  Hippolyte  is  taking  us  over,  with  one  of  the  lay- 
sisters,"  said  Queenie,  naming  the  most  vigilant  of  the  older 
French  nuns.  "  So  it  will  be  much  better  if  we  don't  talk 
together  on  the  boat.  You  know  there  will  be  the  three 
Munroe  girls  as  well,  because  they  are  going  to  spend  their 
holidays  in  Devonshire  or  somewhere." 

"  How  do  you  know  it  will  be  Madame  Hippolyte  ?  "  said 
Alex  disconsolately. 

The  authority  deputed  to  conduct  pupils  on  the  journey  to 
and  from  Liege  was  one  of  the  many  items  in  the  convent 
curriculum  always  shrouded  in  impenetrable  mystery  until 
the  actual  moment  of  departure. 

"  I  overheard  two  of  them  talking  about  it,  in  the  linen- 
room  this  morning,"  placidly  said  Queenie.  "  I  kept  behind 
the  door." 

Part  of  her  curious  attractiveness  was,  that  she  never  at- 
tempted to  disguise  or  deny  certain  practices  which  Alex 
had  been  taught  to  consider  as  dishonourable. 

Alex  counted  this  as  but  one  more  stone  in  the  edifice 
erected  for  the  worship  of  her  idol.  It  was  not  until  she 
saw  Queenie  Torrance  long  after,  in  other  relations  and 
other  surroundings,  that  she  dimly  realized  how  much  of 
that  streak  of  extraordinary  candour  was  the  direct  product 
of  a  magnificently  justified  self-confidence  in  the  potency  of 
her  own  attraction,  needing  no  enhancement  from  moral  or 
mental  attributes. 

[43] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


"  Do  you  always  live  in  London,  Alex  ?  " 

"  Yes,  in  Clevedon  Square.  You  know,  I  told  you  about 
it,  Queenie." 

**  Yes,  I  know,  but  I  only  wondered  if  perhaps  you  had  a 
house  in  the  country  as  well." 

"  No.  Father  and  mother  go  to  Scotland  in  the  summer, 
and  generally  they  send  us  to  the  seaside  with  Nurse  and 
a  governess  or  some  one." 

"  I  see,"  said  Queenie  reflectively.  She  had  wondered  if 
perhaps  the  Clares  had  a  country  house  to  which  she,  as  a 
favourite  school  friend,  would  be  asked  to  stay. 

"  Father  hates  the  country,"  said  Alex.  "  We  are  sure 
to  be  in  London  for  a  little  while  in  September,  before  I  come 
back  here.  Would  you  —  would  you — "  She  gulped  and 
clasped  her  hands  nervously.  Certain  of  Lady  Isabel's  rules 
and  recommendations  rushed  to  her  mind,  but  she  despe- 
rately tried  to  ignore  them. 

"  I  suppose  you  would  not  come  to  tea  with  me  one  day, 
if  I  were  allowed  to  ask  you?  Oh,  if  only  your  mother 
knew  my  mother !  " 

Smoothly  Queenie  took  her  cue.  "Of  course,  mother 
won't  let  me  go  to  tea  with  any  one  —  unless  she  knows  them 
herself  —  but  I  don't  know  .  .  .  What  Club  does  your 
father  belong  to  ?  " 

"  Two  or  three,  I  think,"  said  Alex,  surprised.  "  He 
often  goes  to  Arthur's  or  the  Turf  Club." 

"  So  does  father.  Perhaps  we  could  manage  it  that 
way,"  said  Queenie  reflectively. 

She  had  every  intention  of  cultivating  her  friendship  with 
Alex  Clare  in  London. 

"  Then  you'd  like  to  come,  Queenie  ? "  breathed  Alex 
ecstaticly. 

"  Of  course,  I  would,"  Queenie  told  her  affectionately. 
*'  My  dear,  you  know  I  have  hated  all  the  fuss  here,  and 
our  never  being  allowed  to  speak  a  word  to  one  another. 
But  what  could  I  do  ?  "     She  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

Then  Queenie  had  really  cared  all  the  time ! 

[44] 


QUEENIE    TORRANCE 

Alex  in  that  moment  was  compensated  for  all  the  tears  and 
storms  and  disgraces  of  the  year.  That  afternoon  spent 
under  the  thick,  leafy  boughs  of  the  old  apple-trees  with 
Queenie,  enabled  Alex  to  face  with  some  degree  of  courage 
the  prospect  of  their  approaching  separation.  She  knew 
that  any  sign  of  unhappiness  for  such  a  reason  would  be 
imputed  to  her  as  wrong-doing  by  the  authorities,  and  as 
unnatural  and  heartless  indifference  to  home  on  the  part  of 
her  companions. 

So  Alex,  who  had  no  trust  in  any  standards  of  her  own, 
was  ashamed  of  the  tears  which  she  nightly  stifled  in  her 
hard  pillow,  and  felt  them  to  be  one  more  of  those  degrading 
weaknesses  with  which  her  Creator  had  malignantly  endowed 
her  in  order  that  she  might  be  as  a  pariah  among  her 
fellows. 

She  felt  no  resentment,  only  blind  wonder  and  fatalistic 
apathy.  Nevertheless,  all  through  Alex'  childhood  and 
early  girlhood,  unhappy  though  she  was,  there  dwelt  within 
her  a  curious  certainty  that,  somewhere,  happiness  awaited 
her,  which  she,  and  she  alone,  would  have  full  capacity  to 
appreciate. 

Side  by  side  with  that,  was  her  intense  capacity  for  suf- 
fering, but  that  she  was  learning  to  think  of  as  only  a  cruel, 
tearing  affliction  despised  alike  by  God  and  man. 

Of  the  immense  force  latent  in  the  power  of  intense  feel- 
ing Alex  knew  nothing,  nor  did  any  of  the  teaching  which 
she  received  vouchsafe  to  her  any  illumination. 

She  and  Queenie  and  the  three  Munroe  ^irls  made  the 
journey  to  England  with  Madame  Hippolyte,  who  showed 
Alex  a  marked  kindness  not  usual  with  her. 

At  fifteen,  wakeful  nights  and  storms  of  crying  leave  their 
traces,  and  Alex,  pale-faced  and  with  encircled  eyes,  was 
pitiful  in  her  propitiatory  attempts  to  join  in  the  eager  antici- 
pations of  holiday  enjoyment  exchanged  between  her  com- 
panions. 

Perhaps,  thought  the  French  nun,  the  little  black  sheep 
had  not  a  very  happy  home.     A  bad  report  would  follow 

[45] 


CONSEQUENCES 


Alex  to  England  she  well  knew,  and  it  might  be  that  the 
poor  child  was  dreading  its  results. 

Her  manner  to  Alex  grew  gentle  and  compassionate,  and 
Alex  noticed  it  with  a  relieved,  uncomprehending  gratitude 
that  held  something  abject  in  its  surprised,  almost  incredu- 
lous acceptance  of  any  kindness. 

Madame  Hippolyte,  though  she  sternly  rebuked  herself 
for  the  uncharitable  impulse,  felt  a  certain  contempt  of  the 
way  in  which  her  advances  were  received. 

She  knew  nothing  of  the  self-assertive,  arrogant  manner 
that  would  presently  revive,  in  the  childish  sense  of  security 
in  home  surroundings,  and  would  yet  be  merely  another 
manifestation  of  the  unbalanced  complexity  that  was  Alex 
Clare. 

But  as  the  crossing  came  to  an  end  and  they  found  them- 
selves in  the  train  speeding  towards  London,  Alex  was 
silent,  her  small  face  white  and  her  eyes  tragical. 

The  American  girls  made  delighted  use  of  the  strip  of 
looking-glass  in  the  carriage,  and  exchanged  predictions  as 
to  the  pleased  amazement  that  would  be  caused  by  Sadie's 
growth,  the  length  of  Marie's  plait  of  red  hair,  and  Diana's 
added  inches  of  skirt. 

Queenie  Torrance  only  glanced  at  her  reflection  once  or 
twice,  though  an  acute  observer  might  have  seen  that  she 
was  not  indifferent  to  the  advantage  of  facing  a  looking- 
glass,  after  the  many  weeks  in  which  none  had  been  avail- 
able. But  she  was  merely  completely  serene  in  the  immuta- 
bility of  her  own  attractiveness.  Queenie  did  not  need  to 
depend  upon  her  looks,  which  seldom  or  never  varied  from 
soft,  colourless  opacity  and  opulence  of  contour.  The  jfele, 
heavy  rings  of  her  fair  hair  always  fell  back  in  the  same 
way  from  her  open,  rounded  forehead,  her  well-modelled 
hands,  with  fingers  broad  at  the  base,  and  pointed,  gleaming 
nails  were  always  cool  and  white. 

The  Americans  were  all  three  pretty  girls,  and  something 
of  race  that  showed  in  Alex'  bearing  and  gestures  made  her 
remarkable  amongst  any  assembly  of  children,  but  it  was  at 

[46] 


QUEENIE    TORRANCE 

Queenie  that  every  man  who  passed  the  little  group  in  the 
railway  carriage  glanced  a  second  time. 

Good  Madame  Hippolyte,  as  serenely  unaware  of  this  as 
only  a  woman  whose  life  had  been  passed  in  a  religious 
Order  could  be,  regarded  Queenie  as  by  far  the  least  of  the 
responsibilities  on  her  hands,  and  did  not  conceal  her  satis- 
faction when  Marie  and  Sadie  and  Diana  were  immediately 
claimed  at  the  terminus  by  a  group  of  excited,  noisy  cousins, 
and  hurried  away  to  an  enormous  waiting  carriage-and- 
pair. 

"  Et  vous  ?  "  she  demanded,  turning  to  the  other  two. 

**  Dad'U  come  for  me,"  said  Queenie  confidently,  inad- 
vertently uttering  a  nickname  that  would  not  have  been 
permitted  to  the  Clare  children,  and  was,  in  fact,  never  in 
those  days  heard  in  the  class  of  society  to  which  they  be- 
longed. 

Queenie  shot  an  imperceptible  glance  of  confusion  at  Alex, 
who  was  clinging  speechlessly  to  her  hand. 

Next  moment  she  had  recovered  herself. 

"  There's  my  father !  "  she  cried. 

Colonel  Torrance  was  making  his  way  rapidly  towards 
them,  a  tall,  soldierly-looking  man,  a  trifle  too  conspicuously 
well  groomed,  a  trifle  too  upright  in  his  bearing,  a  trifle  too 
remarkable  altogether,  with  very  black  moustache  and  eye- 
brows and  very  white  hair. 

He  raised  his  tall  white  hat  with  its  black  band,  at  the 
sight  of  his  daughter,  expanded  his  white  waistcoat  and  grey 
frock-coat  with  the  malmaison  buttonhole  yet  further,  and 
whipped  off  his  pale  grey  glove  to  take  the  limp  hand  ex- 
tended to  him  by  Alex,  as  Queenie  self-possessedly  intro- 
duced her. 

Alex  hardly  heard  Colonel  Torrance's  elaborately  courte- 
ous allusion  to  Sir  Francis  Clare,  whom  he  had  had  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  several  times  at  the  Club,  but  she  won- 
dered eagerly  if  that  introduction  would  be  considered  suf- 
ficient to  allow  of  her  inviting  Queenie  to  Clevedon  Square. 

She  felt  as  though  her  spirit  were  being  torn  from  her 

[47] 


CONSEQUENCES 


body  when  Queenie  said,  "  Good-bye,  Alex,  dear.  Mind 
you  write.     Au  revoir,  ma  mkre." 

Compliments  were  exchanged  between  Madame  Hippo- 
lyte  and  Queenie's  father,  the  gentleman  flourished  his  top 
hat  again,  and  then  said  to  his  daughter : 

"  My  dear,  I  have  a  hansom  waiting;  the  impudent  fellow 
says  his  horse  won't  stand.  I  trust  you  have  no  large 
amount  of  luggage." 

Queenie  shook  her  head,  smiling  slightly,  and  in  a  mo- 
ment, the  brevity  of  which  seemed  incredible  to  Alex  and 
left  her  with  an  instant's  absolute  suspension  of  physical 
faculties,  they  disappeared  among  the  crowd. 

Madame  Hippolyte  grasped  the  arm  of  her  distraught- 
looking  pupil. 

"  But  rouse  yourself,  Alex !  "  she  said  vigorously.  "  Who 
is  to  come  for  you  ?  " 

"  The  carriage,"  muttered  Alex  automatically,  well  aware 
that  neither  would  Lady  Isabel  sacrifice  an  hour  of  her  after- 
noon to  waiting  at  a  crowded  London  station  in  July,  nor 
old  Nurse  permit  the  other  children  to  do  so,  had  they 
wished  it. 

"  And  where  is  it,  this  carriage  ?  "  sceptically  demanded 
Madame  Hippolyte,  harassed  and  exhausted,  and  aware  that 
she  had  yet  to  find  a  four-wheeled  cab  of  sufficiently  cleanly 
and  sober  appearance  to  satisfy  her,  in  which  she  might  pro- 
ceed herself  to  the  convent  branch-house  in  the  east  of  Lon- 
don. But  presently  Alex  came  partially  out  of  her  dream 
and  pointed  out  the  brougham  and  bay  horse  and  the  foot- 
man in  buff  livery  at  the  door. 

"  But  you  will  not  drive  alone  —  in  this  quartier?  "  cried 
the  nun,  in  horrified  protest  at  this  exhibition  of  English 
want  of  propriety. 

Her  fears  proved  groundless. 

The  neat,  black-bonneted  head  of  a  maid  appeared  at  the 
brougham  window,  and  with  a  sigh  of  infinite  relief 
Madame  Hippolyte  bade  farewell  to  the  last  and  most 
anxiously  regarded  of  her  charges. 

[48] 


QUEENIE    TORRANCE 

"  How  you've  grown,  Miss  Alex !  "  cried  the  maid,  but 
her  tone  was  scarcely  one  of  admiration,  as  she  gazed  at  the 
stooping  shoulders  and  pale,  travel-stained  face  under  the 
ugly  sailor  hat  of  dark  blue  straw.  "  We  shall  have  to 
make  you  look  like  yourself,  with  some  of  your  own  clothes, 
before  your  mamma  sees  you,"  she  added  kindly. 

Alex  scarcely  answered,  and  sat  squeezing  her  hands  to- 
gether. 

She  knew  she  must  come  out  of  this  dream  of  misery 
that  seemed  to  envelop  her,  and  which  was  so  naughty  and 
undutiful.  Of  course  it  was  unnatural  not  to  be  glad  to 
come  home  again,  and  it  wasn't  as  though  she  had  been  so 
very  happy  at  Liege. 

It  was  only  Queenie. 

No  one  must  know,  or  she  would  certainly  be  blamed  and 
ridiculed  for  her  foolish  and  headlong  fancy. 

Alex  wondered  dimly  why  she  was  so  constituted  as  to 
differ  from  every  one  else. 

The  cab  turned  into  Clevedon  Square.  Alex  looked  out 
of  the  window. 

The  big  square  bore  already  the  look  of  desertion  most 
associated  in  her  mind  with  summer  in  London.  Shutters 
and  blinds  obscured  the  windows  of  the  first  and  second 
floors  of  many  houses,  and  against  one  of  the  corner  houses 
a  ladder  was  propped  and  an  unwontedly  dazzling  cream- 
colour  proclaimed  fresh  paint. 

Some  of  the  houses  showed  striped  sun-blinds,  and  win- 
dow-boxes of  scarlet  geraniums.  Alex  saw  that  there  were 
flowers  in  their  own  balcony  as  well  as  an  awning. 

When  the  carriage  drew  up  at  the  front  door,  she  jumped 
out  and  replied  hastily  to  the  man-servant's  respectful  greet- 
ing, a  slight  feeling  of  excitement  possessing  her  for  the  first 
time  at  the  prospect  of  seeing  Barbara,  and  impressing  her 
with  her  added  inches  of  height. 

She  ran  quickly  up  the  stairs,  hoping  that  Lady  Isabel 
would  not  chance  to  come  out  of  the  drawing-room  as  she 
went  past.     On  the  second  landing,  safely  past  the  double 

[49] 


CONSEQUENCES 


door  of  the  drawing-room,  she  paused  a  moment  to  take 
breath,  and  heard  a  subdued  call  from  overhead. 

Barbara  was  hanging  over  the  banisters  with  Archie. 

"Hallo,  Alex!" 

Alex  went  up  to  the  schoolroom  landing,  and  she  and  Bar- 
bara looked  curiously  at  one  another,  before  exchanging  a 
perfunctory  kiss. 

Alex  suddenly  felt  grubby  and  rather  shabby  in  her  old 
last  year's  serge  frock,  which  had  been  considered  good 
enough  for  the  journey,  when  she  saw  Barbara  in  her  clean 
white  muslin,  with  a  very  pale  blue  sash,  and  her  hair  tied 
up  with  a  big  pale  blue  bow. 

Barbara's  hair  had  grown,  which  annoyed  Alex.  It  fell 
into  one  long,  pale  curl  down  her  back,  and  no  longer  pro- 
voked a  contrast  with  Alex'  superior  length  of  shining  wave. 
Deprived  of  the  supervision  of  Nurse,  with  her  iron  insist- 
ence on  "  fifty  strokes  of  the  brush  every  night,  and  Row- 
land's Macassor  on  Saturdays,"  Alex'  hair  had  somehow 
lost  its  shine,  and  hung  limply  in  a  tangled,  uneven  pigtail. 

Alex  thought  that  Barbara  eyed  her  in  a  rather  superior 
way. 

She  felt  much  more  enthusiastic  in  greeting  little  Archie. 
He  was  prettier  and  pinker  and  more  engaging  than  ever,  and 
Alex  felt  glad  that  he  had  not  yet  been  sent  to  school,  to 
have  his  fair  curls  cropped,  and  his  Httle  velvet  suit  ex- 
changed for  cricketing  flannels. 

He  pulled  Alex  into  the  schoolroom,  with  the  enthusiasm 
for  a  new  face  characteristic  of  a  child  to  whom  shyness  is 
unknown,  and  Alex  received  the  curt,  all-observant  greeting 
which  she  had  learnt  to  know  would  always  await  her  from 
old  Nurse. 

"  So  you  are  back  from  your  foreign  parts,  are  you.  Miss 
Alex?" 

Nurse  always  said  "  Miss  Alex "  when  addressing  her 
returned  charge  at  first,  and  as  invariably  relapsed  into  her 
old  peremptory  form  of  address  before  the  end  of  the  eve- 
ning. 

[50] 


QUEENIE    1  ORRANCE 

"  My  sakes,  child,  what  have  they  been  doing  to  you  ? 
You  look  like  a  scarecrow." 

"  Has  she  grown?  "  asked  Barbara  jealously.  She  knew 
that  grown-up  people  were  always,  for  some  mysterious 
reason,  pleased  when  one  had  "  grown." 

"  Grown !  Yes,  and  got  her  back  bent  like  a  bow,"  said 
Nurse  vigorously.  "  An  hour  on  the  backboard's  what 
you'll  do  every  day,  and  bed  at  seven  o'clock  tonight.  Have 
they  been  giving  you  enough  to  eat  ?  " 

"  Of  course,"  said  Alex,  tossing  her  head. 

She  did  not  like  the  convent  when  she  was  there,  but  a 
contradictory  instinct  always  made  her  when  at  home  uphold 
it  violently,  as  a  privileged  spot  to  which  she  alone  had 
access. 

"  You  look  half -starved,  to  me,"  Nurse  said  unbelievingly. 

Nothing  would  ever  have  persuaded  her  of  what  was,  in 
fact,  the  truth,  that  Alex  received  more  abundant,  more 
wholesome,  and  infinitely  better  cooked  food  in  Belgium 
than  in  London. 

Barbara  sat  on  the  end  of  the  sofa,  swinging  her  legs  and 
fidgetting  with  the  tassel  of  the  blind-cord. 

"  Have  you  brought  back  any  prizes,  Alex  ?  "  she  enquired 
negligently. 

And  Alex  replied  with  an  equal  air  of  indifference: 

"  One  for  composition,  and  I've  got  a  certificate  of  pro- 
ficiency for  music." 

This  was  not  at  all  the  way  in  which  she  had  planned  to 
make  her  announcements.  She  had  thought  that  her  prizes 
would  impress  Barbara  very  much,  and  she  had  foreseen  a 
sort  of  small  ceremony  of  display  when  she  would  bring  out 
the  big  red-and-gilt  book.  But  Barbara  only  nodded,  and 
presently  said: 

"  Cedric  has  got  quantities  of  prizes :  the  headmaster 
wrote  and  told  father  that  he  was  a  *  boy  of  marked  abilities 
and  remarkable  power  of  concentration,'  and  father  is  going 
to  give  him  a  whole  sovereign,  but  that's  because  he  made 
his  century." 

[SI] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"When  will  he  be  here?" 

"  Next  week.  His  holidays  begin  on  Tuesday  and  he's 
got  a  whole  fortnight  longer  than  we  have." 

"  We  ?  "  asked  Alex  coldly.  "  How  can  you  have  holi- 
days ?    You're  not  at  school." 

"  I  have  lessons,"  cried  Barbara  angrily.  "  You  know  I 
have,  and  Ma'moiselle  is  going  to  give  me  a  prize  for  writ- 
ing, and  a  prize  for  history,  and  a  prize  for  application.  So 
there ! " 

"  Prizes !  "  said  Alex  scornfully.  "  When  you're  all  by 
yourself !     I  never  heard  such  nonsense." 

She  no  longer  felt  wretched  and  subdued,  but  full  of  irri- 
tation at  Barbara's  conceit  and  absorption  in  herself. 

"  It's  not  nonsense !  " 

"  It  is.     If  you'd  been  at  school  you'd  know  it  was." 

"  One  word  more  of  this  and  you'll  go  to  bed,  the  pair  of 
you,"  declared  old  Nurse,  the  autocrat  whom  Alex  had  for 
the  moment  forgotten.  "  It's  argle-bargle  the  minute  you 
set  foot  in  the  place.  Miss  Alex.  Now  you  just  come  along 
and  be  made  fit  to  be  seen  before  your  poor  mamma  and 
papa  set  eyes  on  you  looking  like  a  charity-school  child,  as 
hasn't  seen  a  brush  or  a  bit  of  soap  for  a  month  of  Sun- 
days." 

Useless  to  protest  even  at  this  trenchant  description  of 
herself.  Useless  to  attempt  resistance  during  the  long  proc- 
ess of  undressing,  dressing  again,  brushing  and  combing, 
inspection  of  finger-nails  and  general,  dissatisfied  scrutiny 
that  ensued.  Alex,  in  a  stiff,  clean  frock,  the  counterpart,  to 
her  secret  vexation,  of  Barbara's,  open-work  stockings,  and 
new  shoes  that  hurt  her  feet,  was  enjoined  "  to  hold  back 
her  shoulders  and  not  poke  "  and  dispatched  to  the  drawing- 
room  with  Barbara  and.  Archie  as  soon  as  the  schoolroom 
tea  was  over. 

She  felt  as  though  she  had  never  been  away. 

No  one  had  asked  her  anything  about  the  convent,  and  all 
through  tea  Barbara  and  Archie  had  talked  about  the  coming 
holidays,  or  had  made  allusions  to  events  of  which  Alex 

[52] 


QUEENIE    TORRANCE 

knew  nothing,  but  which  had  evidently  been  absorbing  their 
attention  for  the  last  few  weeks. 

They  seemed  to  Alex  futile  in  the  extreme. 

Downstairs,  Lady  Isabel  kissed  her,  and  said,  "  Well,  my 
darling,  I'm  very  glad  to  have  you  at  home  again.  Have 
you  been  a  good  girl  this  term,  and  brought  back  a  report 
that  will  please  papa  ?  "  and  then  had  turned  to  speak  to 
some  one  without  waiting  for  an  answer. 

Alex  sat  beside  her  mother  while  she  talked  to  the  one 
remaining  visitor,  and  felt  discontented  and  awkward. 

Barbara  and  Archie  were  looking  at  pictures  together  in 
the  corner  of  the  room,  very  quiet  and  well  behaved.  The 
caller  stayed  late,  and  just  as  she  had  gone  Sir  Francis  came 
in  from  his  Club,  the  faint,  familiar  smell  of  tobacco,  and 
Russia  leather,  and  expensive  eau-de-Cologne  that  seemed  to 
pervade  him,  striking  Alex  with  a  fresh  sense  of  recognition 
as  she  rose  to  receive  his  kiss.  He  greeted  her  very  kindly, 
but  Alex  was  quite  aware  of  a  dissatisfaction  as  intense  as, 
though  less  outspoken  than,  that  of  old  Nurse  as  he  put  up 
his  double  eye-glasses  and  gazed  at  his  eldest  daughter. 

"  We  must  see  if  the  country  or  the  seaside  will  bring 
back  some  roses  to  your  cheeks,'*  he  said  in  characteristic 
phraseology. 

But  when  the  children  were  dismissed  from  the  drawing- 
room,  Sir  Francis  straightened  his  own  broad  back,  and 
tapped  Alex'  rounded  shoulder-blades. 

"  Hold  yourself  up,  my  child,"  he  said  very  decidedly. 
"  I  want  to  see  a  nice  flat,  and  straight  back." 

He  made  no  other  criticism,  and  none  was  needed. 

Alex  had  gauged  the  extent  of  his  dismay. 


[S3] 


M 


IV 

Holidays 

*  *  1^  1^  OTHER,  may  I  ask  Queenie  Torrance  to  tea  ?  " 
Alex  had  rehearsed  the  words  so  often  to  her- 
self that  they  had  almost  become  meaningless. 

Her  heart  beat  thickly  with  the  anticipation  of  a  refusal, 
when  at  last  she  found  courage  and  opportunity  to  utter  the 
little  stilted  phrase,  with  a  tongue  that  felt  dry  and  in  a 
voice  that  broke  nervously  in  her  throat. 

"What  do  you  say,  darling?"  absently  inquired  Lady 
Isabel ;  and  Alex  had  to  say  it  again. 

**  Queenie  Torrance  ?  "  said  Lady  Isabel,  still  vaguely. 

"  Mother,  you  remember  —  I  told  you  about  her.  She  is 
the  only  other  English  girl  besides  me  at  the  convent,  and 
she  knows  all  about  father  and  you  and  everything,  and  her 
father  belongs  to  the  same  Club  — " 

Snobbishness  was  not  in  Alex'  composition,  but  she 
adopted  her  mother's  standards  eagerly  and  instinctively,  in 
the  hope  of  gaining  her  point. 

"But,  my  darHng,  what  are  you  talkin'  about?  You 
know  mother  doesn't  let  you  have  little  girls  here  unless  she 
knows  somethin'  about  them.  Give  me  the  little  diamond 
brooch,  Alex ;  the  one  in  the  silver  box  there." 

Lady  Isabel,  absorbed  in  the  completion  of  her  evening 
toilette,  remained  unconscious  of  the  havoc  she  had  wrought. 
Alex  felt  rather  sick. 

The  intensity  of  feeling  to  which  she  was  a  victim,  for  the 
most  part  reacted  on  her  physically,  though  she  was  as 
unconscious  of  this  as  was  her  mother. 

But  with  the  cunning  borne  of  urgent  desire,  Alex  knew 
that  persistence,  which  with  Sir  Francis  would  invariably 
win  a  courteous  rebuke  and  an  immutable  refusal,  could 

[54] 


HOLIDAYS 


sometimes  bring  forth  rather  querulous  concession  from 
Lady  Isabel's  weakness. 

"  But,  mummy,  darling,  I  do  want  Queenie  to  come  here 
and  see  Barbara  and  Cedric." 

It  was  not  true,  but  Alex  was  using  the  arguments  which 
she  felt  would  be  most  likely  to  appeal  to  her  mother. 

"  She  wants  to  know  them  so  much,  and  —  and  I  saw  her 
father  at  the  station  when  we  arrived,  and  he  was  very 
polite." 

"  Who  was  with  you  ?  I  don't  like  your  speakin'  like  that 
to  people  whom  father  and  I  don't  know." 

"  Oh,  it  was  only  a  second,"  said  Alex  hastily.  "  Madame 
Hippolyte  was  there,  and  Colonel  Torrance  just  came  up  to 
take  Queenie  away." 

"  Torrance  —  Torrance  ?  '*  said  Lady  Isabel  reflectively. 
"Who's  Torrance?" 

The  question  made  Alex'  heart  sink  afresh.  It  was  one 
which,  coming  from  her  parents,  she  heard  applied  to  new 
acquaintances,  or  occasionally  to  proteges  for  whom  some 
intimate  friends  might  crave  the  favour  of  an  invitation  to 
one  of  the  big  Clare  "  crushes  "  during  the  season,  and  the 
inquiry  was  seldom  one  which  boded  well  for  the  regard  in 
which  the  newcomer  would  be  held. 

"  Mother,  you'd  like  her,  I  think,  really  and  truly  you 
would.     She's  awfully  pretty." 

"  Alex !  " 

Lady  Isabel  for  once  sounded  really  angry. 

"  I'm  so  sorry ;  it  slipped  out  —  I  didn't  mean  it  —  I 
never  really  say  it.     I  never  do,  mother." 

Alex  became  agitated,  trying  to  fend  off  the  accusation 
which  she  foresaw  was  coming. 

*'  I  suppose  you  learn  those  horrid  slang  words  from  this 
girl  you've  taken  such  a  violent  fancy  to." 

"  No,  no." 

"  Well,  darling,  both  father  and  I  are  very  much  dis- 
gusted with  some  of  the  tricks  you've  picked  up  at  the 
convent,  and  you'll  have  to  find  some  way  of  curin'  yourself 

[55] 


CONSEQUENCES 


before  you  put  up  your  hair  and  come  out.  As  for  the  way 
you're  holdin'  yourself,  Vm  simply  shocked  at  it,  and  so  is 
your  father;  I  shall  see  about  sendin'  you  to  MacPherson's 
gymnasium  for  proper  exercises  as  soon  as  you  get  back 
from  the  country." 

Lady  Isabel  gazed  with  dissatisfaction  at  her  daughter. 

"You  mustn't  be  a  disappointment  to  us,  darling,"  she 
said.  "  You  know  you'll  be  coming  out  in  another  two 
years'  time,  and  it's  so  important — " 

She  broke  off,  eyeing  Alex  anxiously.  Already  she  had 
forgotten  the  question  of  the  invitation  to  Queenie  Tor- 
rance.    Alex,  in  an  agony,  rushed  recklessly  at  her  point. 

"But,  mother,  you  haven't  said  yet  —  may  I  ask  Queenie 
on  Saturday  ?  You  know  we  shan't  be  here  after  Saturday. 
May  I?" 

Lady  Isabel  moved  to  the  door  with  more  annoyance  than 
she  often  displayed. 

"  My  dear  child,  you're  old  enough  to  know  that  these 
things  aren't  done,  and  besides,  I've  already  said  no.  Father 
and  I  dislike  these  sudden,  violent  friendships,  in  any  case. 
Run  along  upstairs,  my  darling,  and  if  you  and  Barbara 
want  a  little  tea-party  on  Saturday,  you  may  ask  those  nice 
Fitzgerald  children.     Tell  Nurse  that  I  said  you  might." 

Lady  Isabel  kissed  Alex,  and  went  downstairs,  the  trail- 
ing folds  of  her  evening  dress  carefully  held  up  in  one  hand 
as  she  descended  the  broad,  curving  stairs. 

From  the  upper  landing  Alex  watched  her  for  a  few  mo- 
ments, her  face  burning  with  mortification  and  the  effort  to 
restrain  her  tears.  Then  she  broke  into  sobs  and  ran  away 
upstairs. 

Mother  had  not  understood  in  the  very  least.  She  never 
understood,  never  would  understand. 

No  one  understood. 

Alex  felt,  as  so  often,  that  she  would  barter  everything 
she  possessed  for  the  finding  of  some  one  who  would  under- 
stand. 

In  her  craving  for  self-expression,  she  talked  to  Barbara 

[56] 


HOLIDAYS 


about  Queenie  Torrance,  but  represented  their  intercourse  as 
that  of  an  equal  friendship,  with  unbounded  affection  and 
confidence  on  both  sides. 

Barbara  listened  believingly  enough,  and  even  exhibited 
signs  of  a  faint  jealousy,  and  gradually  Alex'  inventions 
brought  her  a  slight  feeling  of  comfort,  as  though  the  ideal 
friendship  which  she  so  readily  described  to  her  little  sister 
must  have  some  real  existence. 

The  old  sense  of  supremacy  began  to  assert  itself  again, 
and  Barbara  fell  into  the  old  ways  of  following  Alex'  lead 
in  everything.  She  lost  her  shrinking  convent  manner,  born 
of  the  sense  of  helpless  insecurity,  and  when  Cedric's  return 
brought  Barbara  back  to  her  earliest  allegiance  —  the  league 
which  she  and  Cedric  had  always  formed  against  Alex' 
overbearing  ways  in  the  nursery  —  her  defection  was  re- 
sented by  her  sister  with  no  lack  of  spirit. 

"  Idiotic  little  copy-cat !  Just  because  Cedric's  come,  you 
pretend  you  only  care  for  cricket  and  nonsense  like  that,  as 
though  he  wanted  to  play  cricket  with  a  little  girl  like  you." 

"  He  doesn't  mind  playing  cricket  with  me ;  he  says  I  can 
bowl  very  well  for  a  girl,  and  it  gives  him  practice.  Any- 
way," said  Barbara  shrewdly,  *"  he  likes  talking  about  it,  and 
how  am  I  to  be  his  pal  unless  I  understand  what  he  means  ?  " 

'*  You're  not  to  say  that  horrid,  vulgar  word.  You  know 
mother  would  be  very  angry." 

"  I  shall  say  what  I  like.  It's  not  your  business.  You're 
a  prig,  ever  since  you  went  to  that  hateful  convent ! " 

"  You're  not  to  speak  to  me  like  that,  you're  not ! " 
shouted  Alex,  stamping  her  foot. 

The  dispute  degenerated  into  one  of  the  furious  quarrels 
of  their  nursery  days,  and  Alex,  completely  mastered  by  her 
temper,  flew  at  Barbara,  as  she  had  not  done  since  they 
were  seven  and  ten  years  old  respectively,  and  hit  her  and 
pulled  her  long  curl  viciously. 

Barbara  stood  stock-still  on  the  instant.  She  had  infi- 
nitely more  self-control  than  Alex,  and  a  strong  instinct  for 
being  invariably  in  the  right. 

[57] 


CONSEQUENCES 


But  she  uttered  shriek  upon  piercing  shriek  that  brought 
old  Nurse,  heavy-footed  but  astonishingly  swift,  upon  the 
scene,  and  reduced  Alex  to  dire  disgrace  for  the  rest  of  the 
day. 

She  cried  again,  suffering  remorse  and  shame  that  seemed 
almost  unbearable,  and  told  herself  hopelessly  that  she 
could  never  be  good  anywhere. 

"  Such  an  example  to  your  little  sister,  who's  never  given 
me  a  moment's  trouble  all  the  while  you've  been  away," 
Nurse  declared,  at  the  end  of  a  long  monologue  during  which 
Alex  learnt  and  implicitly  believed  that  a  temper  like  hers, 
unbridled  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  must  have  irrevocably  passed 
beyond  one's  own  control  into  that  of  the  Devil  hirqself. 

"  When  you  remember,"  Nurse  wound  up,  "  how  you 
nearly  killed  her  with  your  naughty  ways  and  had  her  on 
her  back  for  a  year,  and  she  with  never  a  word  of  complaint 
against  you,  poor  lamb,  one  would  think  you'd  want  to  make 
it  up  to  her,  instead  of  hitting  one  as  never  even  hits  you 
back.  But  you've  no  heart,  Alex,  as  I've  always  said  and 
always  shall  say  about  you." 

Heart  or  no  heart,  old  Nurse  thoroughly  succeeded  in 
working  upon  Alex'  feelings,  and  in  sobbing  abjection  she 
begged  Barbara's  forgiveness. 

Barbara,  agreeably  conscious  of  martyrdom,  found  it  easy 
to  grant,  with  a  gentleness  that  redoubled  Alex'  shame,  and 
the  incident,  except  for  Alex'  swollen  eyes  and  subdued 
tones  next  day,  was  closed.  Cedric,  characteristically,  re- 
mained oblivious  of  it  throughout. 

He  had  grown  into  a  good-looking  boy,  not  tall  for 
his  eleven  years,  but  sturdy  and  well  set  up,  with  steady, 
straight-gazing  eyes  behind  the  spectacles  that  his  short 
sight  still  necessitated,  to  the  grief  of  Lady  Isabel.  His 
mind  was  obsessed  by  cricket,  and  from  his  conversation  one 
might  have  deduced  that  no  other  occupation  had  filled  the 
summer  term.  Nevertheless,  he  brought  home  a  large  pile 
of  prizes,  and  a  report  that  caused  Sir  Francis  to  smile 
his  excessively  rare  smile  and  utter  two  words  that  Cedric 

[58] 


HOLIDAYS 


never  forgot,  and  never  mentioned  to  any  one  else :     "  Well 
done." 

Two  days  after  Cedric's  return,  Sir  Francis  and  Lady 
Isabel  went  away  for  their  annual  round  of  country  visits, 
and  old  Nurse,  with  the  new,  young  nurse  who  devoted  her 
services  exclusively  to  Pamela,  and  a  nursery-maid  to  wait 
upon  them,  went  with  the  children  to  stay  at  Fiveapples 
Farm  in  Devonshire. 

The  farm  was  glorious. 

The  girls  might  run  about  the  hay-fields  and  in  the  lanes, 
though  Nurse,  mindful  of  Lady  Isabel's  injunction  as  to 
complexion  and  the  danger  of  freckles,  always  insisted  on 
hats  and  gloves ;  and  Cedric,  followed  everywhere  like  a  little 
shadow  by  Archie,  rode  the  farm  horses  and  even  went  into 
Exeter  to  market  with  Farmer  Young  on  Fridays. 

Alex  insensibly  began  to  cease  her  preoccupied  outlook 
for  letters  from  Queenie,  and  the  convent  life  began  to  relax 
its  hold  on  her  memory  and  imagination,  as  older  influences 
resumed  their  sway. 

Correspondence  with  Queenie  had  never  been  satisfactory. 

Although  not  forbidden,  Alex  knew  that  it  was  considered 
a  foolish  and  undesirable  practice,  and  that  her  letters,  al- 
though, as  a  matter  of  fact,  generally  given  to  her  unopened, 
were  always  liable  to  supervision  by  the  authorities  as  a 
matter  of  course. 

Old  Nurse  might  be  unable  to  read,  although  no  one  had 
ever  heard  her  admit  as  much,  but  she  always  slit  open  any 
letter  that  came  for  Alex  or  Barbara  and  made  a  feint  of 
perusing  it;  unless  the  envelope,  as  rarely  happened,  bore 
Lady  Isabel's  superscription. 

"  In  the  absence  of  your  mamma,"  said  old  Nurse  se- 
verely, and  she  never  failed  to  refuse  unhesitatingly  any  re- 
quest from  Alex  to  be  allowed  to  go  to  the  post  office  for 
the  purpose  of  buying  stamps. 

Queenie  had  only  written  twice.  The  second  letter 
reached  Alex  at  Fiveapples  Farm,  when  she  had  nearly 
given  up  hope  for  it. 

[59] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


"  Dear  Alex, 

"  Thank  you  very  much  for  your  letters.  It  is  nice  of  you 
to  write  to  me  so  often.  Please  forgive  me  for  not  writing 
oftener  to  you,  but  I  haven't  got  much  time.  It's  so  hot  in 
London  now.  You  are  very  lucky  to  be  in  the  country.  I 
think  we  shall  go  soon,  but  I  don't  know  yet  where  we 
shall  go. 

"  Do  you  know  that  you  are  quite  near  where  the  Munroes 
are  staying?  Diana  wrote  to  me  the  other  day.  Perhaps 
you  will  see  them.  Please  give  them  my  love.  Do  you  re- 
member how  funny  Diana  was  at  her  singing  lessons?  I 
often  think  of  the  convent,  don't  you?  Now  I  must  end, 
Alex,  with  fond  love  from  your  affectionate  school  friend, 

"  QUEENIE. 

"  P.  S.  I  am  not  going  back  next  term.  I  am  very  glad, 
except  for  not  seeing  you.  I  hope  we  shall  see  each  other 
in  London." 

Alex  read  and  re-read  the  postscript,  and  tried  not  to 
think  that  the  rest  of  the  letter  was  disappointing. 

"Your  great  friend  doesn't  write  you  nearly  such  long 
letters  as  you  write  her,"  observed  Barbara,  eyeing  the  four 
small  sheets  which  Queenie's  unformed,  curiously  immature- 
looking  writing  had  barely  succeeded  in  covering. 

"  She  hasn't  got  time,"  said  Alex  quickly  and  defensively. 

"  More  like  she's  got  a  sensible  governess  who  doesn't  let 
her  waste  good  pen  and  paper  on  such  rubbish,"  old  Nurse 
severely  pointed  the  moral. 

"  What  do  girls  want  to  write  to  one  another  for  ? "  said 
Cedric.     "  They  can't  have  anything  to  say." 

Barbara,  who  was  secretly  curious,  seized  the  opportunity. 

"  What  does  she  write  about,  Alex  ?  " 

Alex  would  have  liked  to  tell  them  to  mind  their  own 
business,  but  she  knew  that  any  accusation  of  making  mys- 
teries would  bring  down  Nurse's  wrath  upon  her,  and  as 
likely  as  not  the  confiscation  of  the  letter. 

She  read  it  aloud  hastily,  with  a  pretence  of  skipping  here 

[60] 


HOLIDAYS 


and  there,  leaving  out  the  "  dear  Alex  "  at  the  beginning, 
and  the  whole  of  the  last  sentence  and  the  postscript. 

"  I  suppose  you've  left  out  all  the  darlings  and  the  loves 
and  kisses,"  Cedric  remarked  scornfully,  more  from  con- 
ventionality than  anything  else. 

Alex  was  not  averse  to  having  it  supposed  that  Queenie 
had  been  more  lavish  with  endearments  than  she  had  in 
reality  shown  herself. 

"  Who  are  the  Munroes  ?  "  asked  Barbara.  "  Are  they 
nice?" 

"  The  American  girls  who  crossed  from  Liege  with  me. 
I  remember  now,  they  were  going  to  spend  their  holidays 
with  an  aunt  somewhere  in  Devonshire." 

"  Perhaps  we  shall  see  them.     How  old  are  they  ?  " 

"  Sadie  and  Diana  are  much  older  than  you,"  Alex  told 
her  crushingly.  "  In  fact,  they're  older  than  I  am.  But 
the  little  one,  Marie,  is  only  twelve." 

"  Where  does  the  aunt  live  ?  " 

"  How  should  I  know  ?  "  said  Alex.  She  reflected  bitterly 
that  even  if  her  schoolmates  should  ever  meet  her  in  Devon- 
shire, it  would  be  impossible  for  her  to  make  any  advance 
to  them,  with  old  Nurse,  even  more  strictly  mindful  of  the 
conventions  than  Lady  Isabel. 

But  for  once  it  seemed  as  though  fate  were  on  Alex' 
side. 

"  I  hear,"  wrote  Lady  Isabel,  in  one  of  her  hasty,  collec- 
tive letters,  addressed  impartially  to  "  My  darling  Children," 
"  that  Mrs.  Alfred  Cardew,  who  lives  at  a  very  pretty  house 
called  Trevose,  not  more  than  a  few  miles  from  where  you 
are,  has  her  three  little  nieces  with  her  for  the  holidays,  and 
that  they  are  at  the  same  convent  as  Alex.  So  if  you  like, 
darlings,  as  I  know  Mrs.  Alfred  Cardew  quite  well,  you 
may  ask  Nurse  to  let  you  arrange  some  little  picnic  or  other 
and  invite  the  three  children." 

Alex,  taken  by  surprise,  felt  doubtful.  She  did  not  know 
whether  she  wanted  to  expose  herself  to  the  criticisms  which 
she  thought,  disparagingly  gazing  round  at  her  brothers  and 

[6iJ, 


CONSEQUENCES 


sisters  and  their  autocratic  guardian,  they  would  inevitably 
call  forth  from  strangers.  Suppose  they  came,  and  Barbara 
was  shy  and  foolish,  and  Cedric  doggedly  bored,  and  then 
the  Munroes  went  back  to  Liege  next  term  and  laughed  at 
Alex,  and  told  the  other  girls  what  queer  relations  she  had. 
And  again,  thought  Alex,  Nurse  would  probably  think  the 
Americanisms,  which  had  amused  Queenie  and  Alex  at  the 
convent,  merely  vulgar,  and  Barbara  and  Cedric  would 
wonder. 

"  You  are  extraordinary,  Alex !  "  said  Barbara  petulantly. 
"  You're  always  talking  about  your  friends  at  the  convent 
and  saying  how  nice  they  are,  and  then  when  there's  a 
chance  of  our  seeing  them  too,  you  don't  seem  to  want  to 
have  them." 

"  Yes,  I  do,"  said  Alex  hastily,  and  consoled  herself 
with  the  reflection  that  very  likely  the  plan  would  never 
materialize. 

But  as  luck  would  have  it,  Alex,  the  very  next  day,  saw 
Sadie  Munroe  waving  to  her  excitedly  from  the  carriage 
where  she  was  driving  with  a  very  gaily-dressed  lady,  obvi- 
ously the  aunt. 

The  following  week,  a  charming  note  invited  Alex, 
Barbara,  Cedric  and  Archie  to  lunch  and  spend  the  after- 
noon at  Trevose.  They  should  be  fetched  in  the  pony-cart, 
and  driven  back  after  tea. 

At  least,  Alex  reflected  thankfully,  old  Nurse  would  not 
be  there  to  put  her  to  shame. 

About  Archie,  with  his  clean  sailor  suit  and  shining  curls, 
she  felt  no  anxiety.     He  was  always  a  success. 

But  she  inspected  Cedric,  and  especially  Barbara,  with 
anxiety. 

The  day  was  a  very  hot  one,  and  Cedric  in  cricketing  flan- 
nels looked  sufficiently  like  every  other  boy  of  his  age  and 
standing  to  reassure  his  critical  sister. 

But  Barbara! 

Surely  the  three  pretty,  sharp-eyed  Americans  would  de- 
spise little,  pale,  plain  Barbara,  with  her  one  ridiculous  curl 

[62] 


HOLIDAYS 


of  pale  hair,  and  the  big,  babyish  bow  of  blue  ribbon  against 
which  Alex  had  protested  so  vigorously  in  her  own  case  that 
Nurse  had  finally  substituted  black. 

No  amount  of  protest,  however,  even  had  Alex  dared  to 
offer  it,  would  have  induced  Nurse  to  depart  from  the  rule 
which  decreed  that  the  sisters  should  be  dressed  alike,  and 
Barbara's  clean  cotton  frock  was  the  counterpart  of  Alex*. 

Alex  thought  the  similarity  ridiculous,  and  hated  the  twin 
Leghorn  hats,  each  with  a  precisely  similar  wreath  round 
the  crown,  of  thick,  pale  blue  forget-me-nots,  of  which 
the  clusters  were  unrelieved  by  any  blade  or  hint  of  green. 

Even  their  brown  shoes  and  stockings  and  brown  gauntlet 
gloves  were  alike. 

Alex  felt  disgusted  at  the  aspect  which  she  thought  they 
must  present,  and  was  unable  to  enjoy  the  four-mile  drive 
in  the  pony-cart  Mrs.  Cardew  had  sent  over  for  them.  She 
could  not  have  told  whether  she  was  more  apprehensive  of 
the  effect  Barbara  and  Cedric  might  have  on  the  Munroes, 
or  the  Munroes  on  Barbara  and  Cedric. 

"  What  do  you  suppose  we  shall  do  all  the  afternoon  ?  " 
asked  Barbara.  She  was  in  one  of  her  rare  moods  of  ex- 
citement, and  her  futile  chattering  and  unceasing  questions 
filled  Alex  with  impatience. 

The  two  were  on  the  verge  of  a  quarrel  by  the  time  the 
last  hill  was  reached. 

Then  came  a  long,  shady  avenue,  with  two  pretty  little 
lodges  and  a  wide  stone  gate,  and  the  groom  drove  the 
pony  smartly  round  a  triangular  gravel  sweep  which  lay 
before  the  arched  entrance  to  the  big  Georgian  house. 

Sadie,  Marie  and  Diana  were  sitting  on  the  low  stone  wall 
that  divided  the  drive  from  what  looked  like  a  wilderness 
of  pink  and  red  roses,  and  Alex  noticed  with  relief  that 
they  were  all  three  dressed  exactly  alike  in  white  musHn 
frocks,  although  she  also  saw  that  in  spite  of  the  blazing 
sun  they  were  without  hats  or  gloves.  They  jumped  off  the 
wall  as  the  pony-cart  drew  up  before  the  door  and  greeted 
the  Clare  children  eagerly,  and  with  no  trace  of  shyness. 

[63] 


Other  People 

IT  seemed  to  Alex  that  the  day  was  going  to  be  a  success, 
and  her  spirits  rose. 
She  was  rather  surprised  to  see  that  Diana  Munroe, 
who  was  seventeen,  wore  her  hair  in  a  thick  plait  twisted 
round  the  crown  of  her  head,  and  asked  her  almost  at  once : 

"  Have  you  put  your  hair  up,  Diana  ?  Are  you  going  to 
*  come  out  *  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no.  It'll  come  down  again  at  the  end  of  the  holi- 
days, for  my  last  term.  Only  Aunt  Esther  likes  to  see  it 
that  way.  There's  Aunt  Esther,  at  the  bottom  of  the  rose 
garden." 

Looking  over  the  terrace  wall  they  saw  half-a-dozen 
grown-up  people,  men  in  white  flannels,  and  youthful-look- 
ing ladies  in  thin  summer  dresses.  Alex  was  rather  pleased. 
She  had  always  been  more  of  a  success  with  her  mother's 
grown-up  friends  than  with  her  own  contemporaries,  from 
the  time  of  her  nursery  days,  when  she  had  been  sent  for  to 
the  drawing-room  on  the  "  At  Home  "  afternoons. 

But  though  Mrs.  Cardew  looked  up  and  waved  her  hand 
to  the  group  of  children  on  the  terrace,  she  did  not  appear 
to  expect  them  to  join  the  party,  and  the  interval  before 
lunch  was  spent  in  the  display  of  white  rabbits  and  guinea- 
pigs. 

At  first  Alex  watched  Barbara  rather  nervously,  wonder- 
ing if  she  would  be  shy  and  foolish,  and  disgrace  her,  but 
Barbara,  no  longer  over-shadowed  by  an  elder  sister  who 
outshone  her  in  every  way,  had  acquired  a  surprising  amount 
of  self-assurance.  Alex  was  not  even  certain  that  she  ap- 
proved of  the  ease  with  which  her  little  sister  talked  and 

[64] 


O  THER    PEOPLE 


exclaimed  over  the  pet  animals,  asking  Diana  whether  she 
might  pick  up  the  guinea-pigs  and  hold  them,  without  so 
much  as  waiting  for  a  lead  from  Alex. 

"  Of  course,  you  may !  "  Diana  exclaimed.  "  Here  you 
are. 

She  distributed  guinea-pigs  impartially,  and  earnestly  con- 
sulted Cedric  as  to  the  bald  patch  on  the  Angora  rabbit's 
head. 

As  they  went  back  towards  the  house,  Sadie  Munroe  said 
to  him : 

"  Do  you  mind  not  having  any  other  boys  here  —  only 
girls  ?  I'm  afraid  it's  dull  for  you,  but  Aunt  Esther's  boys 
will  be  here  after  lunch,  only  they  had  to  go  over  and  play 
tennis  with  some  people  this  morning;  it  was  all  settled  be- 
fore we  knew  you  were  coming." 

But  Cedric  did  not  seem  to  mind  at  all. 

At  lunch  Archie,  as  Alex  had  known  he  would  be,  was 
an  immediate  success. 

Even  Mr.  Cardew,  who  was  bald  and  looked  through 
Alex  and  Barbara  and  Cedric  without  seeing  them  when  he 
shook  hands  with  them,  patted  Archie's  curls  and  said: 

"  Hullo,  Bubbles !  " 

"  Come  and  sit  next  to  me,  you  darling,"  said  Mrs.  Car- 
dew,  **  and  you  shall  have  two  helpings  of  everything." 

It  was  a  very  long  luncheon-table,  and  Alex  found  herself 
placed  between  Sadie  and  a  grey-headed  gentleman,  to  whom 
she  talked  in  a  manner  which  seemed  to  herself  to  be  very 
grown-up  and  efficient. 

Barbara  was  on  the  same  side  of  the  table  and  invisible 
to  her,  but  she  saw  Cedric  opposite,  quite  eagerly  talking  to 
Marie  Munroe,  which  rather  surprised  Alex,  who  thought 
that  her  brother  would  despise  all  little  girls  of  twelve. 

Quite  a  number  of  people  whose  names  Alex  did  not 
know  asked  her  about  Lady  Isabel,  and  she  answered  their 
inquiries  readily,  pleased  to  show  off  her  self-possession, 
and  the  gulf  separating  her  from  the  childishness  of  Bar- 
bara, who  was  giggling  almost  all  through  lunch  in  a  manner 

[6s] 


CONSEQUENCES 


that  would  unhesitatingly  have  been  qualified  by  her  par- 
ents as  ill-bred. 

Lunch  was  nearly  over  when  the  two  schoolboy  sons  of 
the  house  came  rushing  in,  hot  and  excited,  and  demanding 
a  share  of  dessert  and  coffee. 

"  Barbarians,"  tranquilly  said  Mrs.  Cardew.  "  Sit  down 
quietly  now,  Eric  and  Noel.  I  hope  you  said  '  How  d'  you 
do  '  to  every  one." 

They  had  not  done  so,  but  both  made  a  sort  of  circular 
salutation,  and  the  elder  boy  dropped  into  a  chair  next  to 
Alex,  while  Eric  went  to  sit  beside  his  mother. 

Noel  Cardew  was  fifteen,  a  straight-featured,  good-look- 
ing English  boy,  his  fairness  burned  almost  to  brick-red, 
and  with  a  very  noticeable  cast  in  one  of  his  light-brown 
eyes. 

Alex  looked  at  him  furtively,  and  wondered  what  she 
could  talk  about. 

Noel  spared  her  all  trouble. 

"  Do  you  ever  take  photographs  ?  "  he  inquired  earnestly. 
"  IVe  just  got  a  camera,  one  of  those  bran-new  sorts,  and 
a  tripod,  quarter-plate  size.  I  want  to  do  some  groups  after 
lunch.  Fve  got  a  dark-room  for  developing,  the  tool-house, 
you  know." 

He  talked  rapidly  and  eagerly,  half  turned  round  in  his 
chair  so  as  almost  to  face  Alex,  and  she  tried  to  feel  flat- 
tered by  the  exclusive  monologue. 

She  knew  nothing  about  photography,  but  uttered  little 
sympathetic  ejaculations,  and  put  one  or  two  timid  questions 
which  Noel  for  the  most  part  hardly  seemed  to  hear. 

When  Mrs.  Cardew  at  length  rose  from  her  place,  he 
turned  from  Alex  at  once,  in  the  midst  of  what  he  was  say- 
ing, and  demanded  vehemently : 

**  Can't  we  have  a  group  on  the  terrace  now  ?  Do  let  me 
do  a  group  on  the  terrace  —  the  light  will  be  just  right  now." 

"  Dear  boy,  you  really  mustn't  become  a  'nuisance  with 
that  camera  of  yours  —  though  he's  really  extraordinarily 
clever  at  it,"  said  his  mother,  in  a  perfectly  audible  aside. 

[66] 


O  THER    PEOPLE 


"  Would  it  bore  you  all  very  much  to  be  victimized  ?  You 
won't  keep  us  sitting  in  the  glare  too  long,  will  you,  dear 
boy?" 

Almost  every  one  protested  at  the  suggestion  of  being 
photographed,  but  while  a  good  many  of  the  gentlemen  of 
the  party  disappeared  noiselessly  and  rapidly  before  the 
group  could  be  formed,  all  the  ladies  began  to  straighten 
their  hats,  and  pull  or  push  at  their  fringes.  Noel  kept 
them  waiting  in  the  hot  sun  for  what  seemed  a  long  while, 
and  Alex  reflected  rather  gloomily  that  Mrs.  Cardew  showed 
a  tolerance  of  his  inconvenient  passion  for  photography 
that  would  certainly  not  have  been  approved  by  her  own 
parents. 

At  last  it  was  over,  and  Sadie  jumped  up,  crying,  "  Now 
we  can  have  some  proper  games  !     What  shall  we  play  at  ?  " 

**  Don't  get  over-heated,"  her  aunt  said,  smiling  and  nod- 
ding as  she  moved  away. 

"  Do  you  like  croquet  ?  "  Diana  asked,  and  to  Alex'  dis- 
appointment they  embarked  upon  a  long,  wearisome  game. 
She  was  not  a  good  player,  nor  was  Barbara,  but  Cedric 
surprised  them  all  by  the  brilliant  ease  with  which  he  piloted 
Marie  Munroe  and  himself  to  victory. 

"  I  say,  that's  jolly  good !  "  Eric  and  Noel  said,  and  gazed 
at  their  junior  with  respect. 

Alex  felt  pleased,  but  rather  impatient  too,  and  wished 
that  it  were  she  who  was  distinguishing  herself. 

When  they  played  hide-and-seek,  however,  her  oppor- 
tunity came.  She  could  run  faster  than  any  of  the  other 
girls  at  Liege,  and  when  Diana  suggested  picking  up  sides, 
she  added  good-naturedly: 

"  Alex  runs  much  faster  than  any  of  us  —  she'd  better  be 
captain  for  one  side,  and  Noel  the  other." 

Noel  looked  as  though  his  own  headship  were  a  matter 
of  course,  but  Alex  felt  constrained  to  say : 

"  Oh,  no,  not  me  —    You,  Diana." 

"  Would  you  rather  not  ?  Very  well.  Cedric,  then. 
Hurry  up  and  choose  your  sides,  boys.     You  start,  Cedric." 

[67] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


"  I'll  have  Marie,"  said  Cedric  unhesitatingly,  and  the 
little  red-haired  girl  skipped  over  beside  him  with  undis- 
guised alacrity. 

*'Noel?" 

Noel  jerked  his  head  in  the  direction  of  Alex. 

"  You,"  he  said. 

She  was  immensely  surprised  and  flattered,  connecting  his 
choice  with  the  same  attraction  that  had  made  him  sit  be- 
side her  at  lunch,  and  not  with  her  own  reported  prowess  as 
a  runner. 

Cedric's  reputation  for  gallantry  suffered  somewhat  in 
his  next  selections,  which  fell  with  characteristic  common 
sense  on  Noel's  brother  Eric,  and  upon  Barbara.  Noel 
took  Sadie  and  Diana,  and  they  drew  lots  for  Archie. 

The  game  proved  long  and  exciting,  played  all  over  the 
terrace  and  shrubbery. 

Alex  screamed  and  laughed  with  the  others,  and  enjoyed 
herself,  although  she  found  time  to  wish  that  Barbara  were 
not  so  stupid  and  priggish  about  keeping  on  her  gloves,  be- 
cause old  Nurse  had  said  she  must,  and  to  wonder  very 
much  why  Cedric  appeared  so  pleased  with  the  society  of 
red-haired,  chattering  Marie,  whose  side  he  never  left. 

Presently,  as  she  was  looking  for  somewhere  to  hide,  Noel 
Cardew  joined  her. 

"  Come  on  with  me  —  I  know  a  place  where  they'll  never 
find  us,"  he  told  her,  and  led  her  on  tip-toe  to  where  a  very 
small,  disused  ice-house  was  half-hidden  in  a  clump  of 
flowering  shrubs. 

Noel  pushed  open  the  door  with  very  little  effort,  and 
they  crept  into  the  semi-darkness  and  sat  on  the  floor,  pull- 
ing the  door  to  behind  them.     Noel  whispered  softly : 

"  Isn't  it  cool  in  here  ?     I  am  hot." 

"  So  am  I." 

Alex  was  wondering  nervously  what  she  could  talk  about 
to  interest  him,  and  to  make  him  go  on  liking  her.  Evi- 
dently he  did  like  her,  or  he  would  not  have  sat  next  her 
at  lunch  and  told  her  about  his  photography,  and  afterwards 
have  chosen  her  for  his  partner  at  hide-and-seek. 

[68] 


OTHER    PEOPLE 


Alex,  though  she  did  not  know  it,  possessed  a  combina- 
tion that  is  utterly  fatal  to  any  charm :  she  was  unfeignedly 
astonished  that  any  one  should  be  attracted  by  her,  and  at 
the  same  time  agonizedly  anxious  to  be  liked. 

She  wanted  now,  wildly  and  nervously,  to  maintain  the 
interest  which  she  thought  she  had  excited  in  her  companion. 

She  found  the  silence  unbearable.  Noel  would  think  her 
dull,  or  imagine  that  she  was  bored. 

"  Is  this  where  you  do  your  developing?  "  she  asked  in  an 
interested  voice,  although  she  remembered  perfectly  that  he 
had  said  he  used  a  tool-house  for  his  dark-room. 

"  No  —  we've  got  the  tool-house  for  that.  Why,  there 
wouldn't  be  room  to  stand  up  in  here.  Sometimes  I  get 
my  things  developed  and  printed  for  me  at  a  shop,  you  know. 
Chemists  will  generally  do  it  for  one  —  though,  of  course,  I 
prefer  doing  my  own.  But  there  isn't  time,  except  in  the 
holidays,  and  then  one's  always  running  short  of  some  stuff 
or  other.  The  other  day  I  ruined  a  simply  splendid  group 
—  awfully  good,  it  would  have  been:  mother  and  a  whole 
lot  of  people  out  on  the  steps  —  like  we  were  today,  you 
know — "     He  paused  for  sheer  lack  of  breath. 

"  I  hope  the  one  you  took  today  will  be  good,"  said  Alex, 
her  heart  beating  quickly. 

"  Oh,  yes,  sure  to  be,  with  a  day  like  this.  Some  fellows 
say  you  can  get  just  as  much  effect  on  a  dull  day,  using  a 
larger  stop,  but,  of  course,  that's  all  nonsense  really.  I  say, 
I'm  not  boring  you,  am  I  ?  " 

He  hardly  waited  to  hear  her  impassioned  negative  before 
going  on,  still  discussing  photographic  methods. 

It  was  quite  true  that  Alex  was  not  bored,  although  she 
was  hardly  listening  to  what  he  said.  But  his  voice  went 
on  and  on,  and  it  flattered  her  that  he  should  want  to  talk 
to  her  so  exclusively,  as  though  secure  of  her  sympathy. 

"...  And  they  say  colour-photography  will  be  the  next 
thing,  I  believe  one  could  get  some  jolly  good  effects  down 
here.  Young  Eric  is  all  for  messing  about  with  beastly 
paints  and  stuff,  but  I  don't  agree  with  that." 

[69] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  Oh,  no !  " 

"  My  plan  is  to  get  hold  of  a  real  outfit,  as  soon  as  they 
get  the  thing  perfected,  and  then  be  one  of  the  pioneers,  you 
know.     I  say,  I  hope  you  don't  think  this  is  awful  cheek  — " 

"  Oh,  no !  " 

"  This  isn't  a  bad  place  for  experiments,  I  will  say.  You 
see,  you  can  get  the  sea,  and  quite  decent  scenery,  and  any 
amount  of  view  and  stuff.  I  say,  what  ages  they  are  finding 
us,"  he  broke  off  suddenly. 

Alex  felt  deeply  mortified.  Evidently  Noel  was  bored, 
after  all.     But  in  another  minute  he  began  to  talk  again. 

"  I  shouldn't  be  surprised  if  one  of  these  days  I  tried  my 
hand  at  doing  sort  of  book  stuff.  You  know,  photographs 
for  illustrations.     I  believe  it's  going  to  pay  no  end." 

"What  sort  of  things?" 

*'  Oh,  scenery,  you  know,  and  perhaps  houses  and  things. 
Sure  I'm  not  boring  you  ?  " 

"  No,  indeed,  I'm  very  interested." 

"  It  is  rather  interesting,"  Noel  agreed  simply. 

"  Another  thing  I'm  keen  on  is  swimming.  Rather  differ- 
ent, you'll  say ;  but  then  one  can't  do  one  thing  all  the  time, 
and,  of  course,  the  swimming  is  first  class  at  school.  I  went 
in  for  some  competition  and  stuff  last  term ;  high  diving,  you 
know." 

"Oh,  did  you  win?" 

"  Can't  say  I  did.  Young  Eric  got  a  cup  of  sorts,  racing, 
but  I  just  missed  the  diving.  Some  day  I  shall  have  an- 
other try,  I  daresay.  You  know,  I've  got  rather  a  funny 
theory  about  swimming.  I  don't  know  whether  you'll 
see  what  I  mean  at  all  —  in  fact,  I  daresay  it'll  sound  more 
or  less  mad,  to  you  —  but  /  believe  we  do  it  the  wrong 
way." 

"  Oh,"  said  Alex,  wishing  at  the  same  time  that  she  could 
divest  herself  of  the  eternal  monosyllable.  "  Do  tell  me 
about  it." 

"  Well,  it's  a  bit  difficult  to  explain,  but  /  think  we're  all 
taught  the  wrong  way  to  begin  with.     It  doesn't  seem  to 

[70] 


O  THER    PEOPLE 


have  occurred  to  any  one  to  look  at  the  way  fishes  swim." 

Alex  thought  that  Noel  must  really  be  very  original  and 
clever,  and  tried  to  feel  more  flattered  than  ever  at  being 
selected  as  the  recipient  of  his  theories. 

"  I  believe  the  whole  thing  could  be  revolutionized  and 
done  much  better  —  but  I'm  afraid  Vm  always  simply  chock- 
full  of  ideas  of  that  kind." 

"  But  that's  so  interesting,"  Alex  said,  not  consciously  in- 
sincere. 

"  Don't  you  have  all  sorts  of  ideas  like  that  yourself  ?  " 
he  asked  eagerly,  filling  her  with  a  moment's  anticipation 
that  he  was  about  to  give  the  conversation  a  personal  turn. 
"I  think  it  makes  life  so  much  more  interesting  if  one 
goes  into  things;  not  just  stay  on  the  surface,  you  know, 
but  go  into  the  way  things  are  done." 

Alex  thought  she  heard  some  one  coming  towards  their 
hiding-place,  and  wanted  to  tell  Noel  to  stop  talking,  or  they 
would  be  found,  but  she  checked  the  impulse,  fearful  lest 
he  should  think  her  unsympathetic. 

The  dogmatic  schoolboy  voice  went  on  and  on  —  swim- 
ming, photography,  cricket,  and  then  photography  again. 
Alex,  determined  to  feel  pleased  and  interested,  could  only 
contribute  an  occasional  monosyllable,  sometimes  only  an 
inarticulate  sound,  expressive  of  sympathy. 

And  at  the  end  of  it  all,  when  she  was  half  proud  and 
half  irritated  at  the  thought  that  they  must  have  been  sitting 
there  in  the  semi-darkness  for  at  least  an  hour,  Noel  ex- 
claimed : 

"  I  say,  they  are  slow  finding  us.  I  should  think  it  must 
be  quite  tea-time,  shouldn't  you?  How  would  it  be  if  we 
came  out  now  ?  " 

"  Yes,  let's,"  said  Alex,  trying  to  keep  the  mortification 
out  of  her  voice. 

They  emerged  into  the  sunlight  again,  and  Noel  pulled 
out  his  watch. 

"  It's  only  a  quarter  past  four.  I  thought  it  would  be 
much  later,"  he  remarked  candidly.     "  I  wonder  where  they 

[71] 


CONSEQUENCES 


all  are.  I  expect  they'll  want  to  know  where  we've  been 
hiding,  but  you  won't  give  it  away,  will  you?  It's  a  jolly 
good  place,  and  the  others  don't  know  about  it." 

"  I  won't  tell." 

Alex  revived  a  little  at  the  idea  of  being  entrusted  with  a 
secret. 

"  Do  you  often  play  hide-and-seek  ?  " 

"  Oh,  just  to  amuse  the  girls,  in  the  summer  holidays. 
They've  spent  the  last  three  summers  with  us,  you  know. 
Next  year  I  suppose  they'll  go  to  America,  lucky  kids !  " 

"  I'd  love  to  go  to  America,  wouldn't  you  ?  "  Alex  asked, 
with  considerable  over-emphasis. 

"  Pretty  well.  I  tell  you  what  I'd  really  like  to  do  —  I 
shall  do  it  one  day,  too  —  make  a  regular  tour  of  England, 
with  a  camera.  I  don't  know  whether  you'll  think  it's  non- 
sense, of  course,  but  my  idea  has  always  been  that  people 
go  rushing  abroad  to  see  other  countries  before  they  really 
know  their  own.  Now,  my  plan  would  be  that  I'd  simply 
start  at  Land's  End,  in  Cornwall,  just  taking  each  principal 
town  as  it  came  on  my  way,  you  know,  and  exploring  thor- 
oughly. I  shouldn't  mind  going  off  the  main  track,  you 
know,  if  I  heard  of  any  little  place  that  had  an  old  church 
or  castle  or  something  worth  looking  at.  I  don't  know 
whether  you're  at  all  keen  on  old  buildings  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,"  Alex  said  doubtfully ;  "  I've  seen  Liege  and 
Louvain,  in  Belgium — " 

"  Ah,  but  I'm  talking  about  English  places,"  Noel  inter- 
rupted her  inexorably.  "Of  course  the  foreign  ones  are 
splendid  too,  and  I  mean  to  run  over  and  have  a  look  at 
them  some  day,  but  my  theory  is  that  one  ought  to  see  some- 
thing of  one's  own  land  first.  Now  take  Devonshire. 
There  are  simply  millions  of  old  churches  in  Devonshire, 
and  what  I  should  do,  would  be  to  have  a  note-book  with 
me,  and  simply  jot  down  my  impressions.  Then  with 
photographs  one  might  get  out  quite  a  sort  of  record,  if 
you  know  what  I  mean — " 

Alex  was  rather  glad  that  her  companion  should  be  talk- 


OTHER    PEOPLE 


ing  to  her  so  eagerly  as  they  came  in  sight  of  a  group  of 
people  on  the  terrace. 

"  Here  are  the  truants,'*  said  Mrs.  Cardew,  laughing,  and 
Diana  Munroe  exclaimed  that  Aunt  Esther  had  called  them 
all  to  tea,  and  they  had  given  up  further  hunt  for  them. 

"  Noel  always  finds  extraordinary  places  to  hide  in,"  she 
added  rather  disparagingly. 

It  was  evident  that  Noel  was  not  very  popular  with  the 
American  cousins. 

"  That  boy  would  be  very  good  looking  if  he  had  not  that 
terrible  cast,"  Alex  overheard  one  lady  say  to  another,  as 
the  visitors  were  waiting  on  the  steps  for  the  pony-carriage 
to  take  them  away.  The  grey-haired  man  next  to  whom 
Alex  had  sat  at  lunch,  and  who  evidently  did  not  know  any 
of  the  group  of  children  apart,  nodded  in  the  direction 
of  little  Archie,  flushed  and  excited,  trying  to  cUmb  the 
terrace  wall,  surrounded  by  adoring  ladies. 

"  That's  the  little  chap  for  my  money." 

"Isn't  he  a  darling?  That's  one  of  Isabel  Clare's  chil- 
dren —  so  are  the  two  girls  in  blue.  I  couldn't  believe  any- 
thing so  tall  was  really  hers." 

"  Oh,  yes  —  I  noticed  one  of  them  —  rather  like  her 
mother?" 

Alex  felt  sure  that  she  ought  not  to  listen,  and  at  the 
same  time  kept  motionless  lest  they  should  notice  her  and 
lower  their  voices. 

She  felt  eagerly  anxious  to  overhear  what  the  grey-haired 
gentleman  might  have  to  say  after  the  very  grown-up  way 
in  which  she  had  made  conversation  with  him  at  lunch,  and 
having  been  a  very  pretty  and  much-admired  drawing-room 
child  in  her  nursery  days,  could  not  altogether  divest  her- 
self of  the  expectation  that  she  must  still  be  found  pretty 
and  entertaining. 

But  the  grey-haired  gentleman  said  impartially : 

"  They  are  neither  of  them  a  patch  on  Lady  Isabel,  are 
they?" 

"  They  are  at  the  awkward  age,"  laughed  the  lady  to  whom 

[73] 


CONSEQUENCES 


he  was  talking.  **  One  of  them  sat  next  to  you  at  lunch, 
didn't  she?" 

"  Yes.  Not  quite  so  natural  as  the  other  children.  That 
little,  red-haired  American  girl,  now  —  a  regular  child  — " 

Alex,  with  a  face  grown  suddenly  scarlet,  left  Barbara, 
shyly,  and  Cedric,  briefly,  to  thank  their  hostess  for  the 
pleasant  day  they  had  spent. 

A  new,  and  far  more  painful  self-consciousness  than  any 
she  had  yet  known,  hampered  her  tongue  and  her  move- 
ments, until  they  were  safely  in  the  pony-carriage  half-way 
down  the  drive. 

"  They  are  nice,  aren't  they  ? "  said  Barbara.  "  Fm  sure 
they  are  nicer  than  Queenie." 

"  No,  they  aren't,"  Alex  contradicted  mechanically. 

"  Well,  Marie  and  Diana  are,  anyway."  She  looked  slyly 
at  Cedric.     *'  Don't  you  think  so,  Cedric  ?  " 

*'  How  can  I  tell  whether  they  are  any  nicer,  as  you  call 
it,  than  another  kid  whom  I've  never  seen  ?  "  inquired  Cedric 
reasonably. 

"  But  didn't  you  like  Marie?  " 

*'  She's  all  right." 

Barbara  giggled  in  the  way  most  disliked  by  her  family, 
the  authorities  of  whom  stigmatized  the  habit  as  "  vulgar," 
and  Cedric  said  severely : 

"  I  shouldn't  think  decent  girls  would  want  to  play  with 
you  at  all,  if  you  don't  leave  off  that  idiotic  trick  of  cackling." 

But  Barbara,  who  was  not  at  all  easily  crushed,  continued 
to  giggle  silently  at  intervals. 

"  Why  are  you  so  silly  ?  "  Alex  asked  her  crossly,  as  they 
were  going  to  bed  that  night. 

She  and  Barbara  shared  a  room  at  Fiveapples  Farm. 

Barbara  whined  the  inevitable  contradiction,  "  I'm  not 
silly,"  but  added  immediately,  "you  wouldn't  be  so  cross, 
if  you  knew  what  I  know.     I  expect  you'd  laugh  too." 

"Well,  what  is  it?" 

"  I  shan't  tell  you." 

Alex  was  not  particularly  curious,  but  she  had  been  the 

[74] 


O  THER    PEOPLE 


nursery  autocrat  too  long  to  be  able  to  endure  resistance  to 
her  command. 

"  Tell  me  at  once,  Barbara." 

"  No,  I  won't." 

"  Yes,  you  will.  Well,  what  is  it  about  ? "  said  Alex, 
changing  her  tactics. 

"  It's  about  Cedric." 

"  Is  he  in  a  scrape  ?  " 

"  No,  it's  just  something  he  did." 

''  What?    Did  he  tell  you  about  it  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no.  He  doesn't  know  I  know.  He'd  be  furious  if 
he  did,  I  expect." 

"  Who  told  you  ?    Does  any  one  else  know  ?  " 

"  Nobody  told  me.  One  other  person  knows,"  giggled 
Barbara,  jumping  up  and  down  in  her  petticoat. 

"  Keep  still,  you'll  have  the  candle  over.  Who's  the  other 
person  who  knows  ?  " 

"  Guess." 

"  Oh,  I  can't ;  don't  be  so  silly.  I  am  not  going  to  ask 
you  any  more," 

*'  Well,"  said  Barbara  in  a  great  hurry,  "  it's  Marie  Mun- 
roe,  then ;  it's  about  her." 

"  What  about  her  ?  She  didn't  take  any  notice  of  any 
one  except  Cedric,  and  I  think  it  was  very  rude  and  stupid 
of  her." 

"  It  was  Cedric's  doing  much  more  than  hers,"  Barbara 
said  shrewdly.  *'  I  think  he  thinks  he  is  in  love  with  her. 
I  saw  them  in  the  shrubbery  when  we  were  playing  hide- 
and-seek  ;  and  —  what  do  you  think,  Alex  ?  " 

"Well,  what?" 

"  Cedric  kissed  her  —  I  saw  him." 

"  Then,"  said  Alex,  "  it  was  perfectly  hateful  of  him  and 
of  Marie  and  of  you." 

"Why  of  me?"  shrieked  Barbara  in  a  high  key  of  in- 
dignation.    "  What  have  I  done,  I  should  like  to  know  ?  " 

"  You'd  no  business  to  say  anything  about  it.  Put  out 
the  candle,  Barbara,  I'm  going  to  get  into  bed." 

[75] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


In  the  darkness  Alex  lay  with  her  mind  in  a  tumult.  It 
seemed  to  her  incredible  that  her  brother,  whom  she  had  al- 
ways supposed  to  despise  every  form  of  sentimentality,  as 
he  did  any  display  of  feeling  on  the  part  of  his  family, 
should  have  wanted  to  kiss  little,  red-haired  Marie,  whom 
he  had  only  known  for  one  day,  and  who  was  by  far  the 
least  pretty  of  any  of  the  three  Munroe  sisters.  "  And  to 
kiss  her  in  the  shrubbery  like  that !  " 

Alex  felt  disgusted  and  indignant.  She  thought  about  it 
for  a  long  while  before  she  went  to  sleep,  although  she 
would  gladly  have  dismissed  the  incident  from  her  mind. 
Most  of  all,  perhaps,  she  was  filled  with  astonishment. 
Why  should  any  one  want  to  kiss  Marie  Munroe  ? 

In  the  depths  of  her  heart  was  another  wonder  which 
she  never  formulated  even  to  herself,  and  of  which  she 
would,  for  very  shame,  have  strenuously  denied  the  exist- 
ence. 

Why  had  she  not  the  same  mysterious  attraction  as  un- 
beautiful  little  Marie?  Alex  knew  instinctively  that  it 
would  never  have  occurred,  say,  to  Noel  Cardew  —  to  ask 
her  if  he  might  kiss  her.  She  did  not  want  him  to  — 
would  have  been  shocked  and  indignant  at  the  mere  idea  — 
but,  unconsciously,  she  wished  that  he  had  wanted  to. 


[76] 


VI 

The  End  of  an  Era 

No  salient  landmarks  ever  seemed  to  Alex  to  render 
eventful  the  two  and  a  half  years  that  elapsed  be- 
tween those  summer  holidays  at  Fiveapples  Farm 
and  her  final  departure  from  the  Liege  convent  to  begin 
her  grown-up  life  at  home. 

The  re-arrangement  of  the  day's  routine  consequent  on 
the  beginning  of  the  winter  half-year  caused  her  to  miss 
Queenie  less  acutely  than  she  had  done  when  she  first 
came  home  for  the  holidays,  and  with  Queenie's  absence 
there  were  fewer  revolts  against  convent  law,  and  less  dis- 
favour from  the  authorities. 

She  made  no  other  great  friends.  Marie  Munroe  showed 
her  a  marked  friendliness  at  first,  but  Alex  could  not  for- 
get that  giggling  revelation  of  Barbara's,  and  shrank  from 
her  advances  unmistakably.  She  had  very  little  in  common 
with  her  French  contemporaries,  and  knew  that  they  thought 
her  English  accent  and  absence  of  proficiency  in  needle- 
work, marks  of  eccentricity  and  of  bad  form,  so  that  she 
became  self-conscious  and  aggressive  before  them. 

She  was  hardly  aware  of  her  own  intense  loneliness  —  the 
poignant  realization  of  it  was  to  come  later  —  but  the  want 
of  any  channel  of  self-expression  for  her  over-developed 
emotional  capabilities  produced  in  her  a  species  of  per- 
manent discontent  that  reacted  on  her  health  and  on  her 
spirits,  so  that  she  got  the  reputation,  least  enviable  of  any 
in  schoolgirl  circles,  of  being  **  a  tragedy  queen." 

Her  morose  pallor,  partly  the  result  of  an  under-vitalized 
system,  and  partly  of  her  total  lack  of  any  interest  in  her 
surroundings,  were  considered  fair  game. 

"  Voyez,  Alex !     File  a  son  air  bete  aujourd'hui." 

[77] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  A  qui  Tenterrement,  Alex  ?  " 

They  were  quite  good-humoured,  and  did  not  mean  to 
hurt  her.  It  was  not  their  fault  that  such  pin-pricks  stabbed 
her  and  sent  her  away  to  cry  over  her  own  friendlessness 
until  she  felt  sick  and  exhausted. 

She  did  not  expend  on  any  one  else  the  extravagant  wor- 
ship bestowed  upon  Queenie  Torrance.  For  a  year  she 
wrote  to  Queenie  throughout  the  holidays,  and  received 
meagre  and  unsatisfactory  replies,  and  then  gradually  the 
correspondence  ceased  altogether,  and  Alex  only  looked  for- 
ward with  an  occasional  vague  curiosity  to  the  possibility 
of  meeting  Queenie  again  in  London,  on  the  terms  of  equal- 
ity symbolized  by  their  both  being  "  grown-up." 

During  her  last  year  at  school,  lack  of  intimate  inter- 
course with  any  one,  and  the  languid  sentimentality  of 
adolescence,  made  her  take  for  the  first  time  some  interest 
in  religion  as  understood  at  the  convent.  She  prolonged 
her  weekly  confession,  which  had  hitherto  been  a  matter 
of  routine  to  be  got  through  as  rapidly  as  possible,  in  order 
to  obtain  the  solace  of  talking  about  herself,  and  derived  a 
certain  tepid  pleasure  in  minutely  following  and  applying 
to  herself  the  more  anecdotal  portions  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. 

For  a  time,  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  had  found  a  refuge. 

Then  came  the  affair  of  the  examination.  Alex,  in  her 
last  term,  and  taking  part  in  the  final  midsummer  concours, 
could  not  bear  the  penalty  of  failure  which  it  seemed  to  her 
would  be  displayed  in  the  mediocrity  which  had  all  along 
been  her  portion.  She  had  never  been  admitted  to  the 
virtuous  society  of  the  enfants  de  Marie,  had  never  taken 
more  than  one  of  the  less  distinguished  prizes  at  the  end 
of  any  term,  and  had  no  warmly-worded  report  to  display 
her  popularity  and  the  sense  of  loss  that  her  departure 
would  leave. 

Her  place  in  the  half-yearly  examination  was  not  a  good 
one.  She  had  none  of  Cedric's  power  of  concentration,  and 
her  abilities  were  not  such  as  to  win  her  any  regard  in  the 

[78] 


THE    END    OF   AN   ERA 

continental  and  Catholic  system  of  education  of  the  middle 
nineties. 

She  cheated  over  the  examination. 

It  was  quite  easy  to  copy  from  the  girl  next  her,  who  hap- 
pened to  be  one  of  the  best  vehicles  for  care  fully- tabulated 
and  quite  unconnected  facts,  in  the  school.  Alex  could 
read  the  dates,  and  the  proper  names,  and  all  the  principal 
words  on  her  history  paper,  and  transferred  them  to  her 
own,  clothing  the  dry  bones  in  the  imaginative  fabric  of  her 
own  words,  for  the  English  girls  were  allowed  to  do  most 
of  the  papers  in  their  own  language. 

At  the  end  of  the  morning  she  was  oddly  elated,  at  the 
sight  of  her  well-filled  paper,  and  felt  no  qualms  at  all.  In 
the  afternoon  she  was  again  next  to  Marie-Louise,  and 
congratulated  herself  that  the  paper  should  be  the  litera- 
ture one.  Arithmetic,  she  knew,  was  not  the  strong  point 
of  Marie-Louise,  and  besides,  it  would  be  almost  impossible 
to  copy  the  working  of  problems  figure  for  figure  without 
ultimate  detection. 

That  night,  however,  when  Alex  knelt  down  to  say  her 
prayers,  she  was  suddenly  overwhelmed  by  remorse  and 
terror. 

Her  crime  came  between  her  and  God. 

The  vaguely  comforting  belief  that  because  she  was  lonely 
and  miserable,  He  would  vouchsafe  to  her  an  especial  pity, 
was  destroyed.  Between  God  and  a  sinner,  so  Alex  had 
been  told,  lay  an  impassable  gulf  that  only  repentance,  con- 
fession, atonement  and  punishment,  could  bridge  —  and 
even  then,  an  indelible  entry  against  one's  name  testified  to 
eventual  exposure  and  shame  at  some  dreadful,  inevitable 
assizes,  when  sins  hidden  and  forgotten,  large  and  small,  of 
commission  and  omission  alike,  would  be  made  known  to 
all  the  world,  assembled  together  for  the  Last  Judgment. 
Faced  with  this  inevitable  retribution,  Alex  felt  that  no  pres- 
ent success  was  worth  it,  and  wondered  whether  she  could 
not  repair  her  wickedness  as  far  as  possible  on  the  morrow 
by  confession, 

[79] 


CONSEQUENCES 


But  when  the  morrow  had  come,  the  Day  of  Judgment 
seemed  far  removed  from  the  hot  July  morning,  and  the 
breaking-up,  when  the  result  of  the  examinations  would  be 
heard,  a  very  present  reality  indeed. 

It  was  a  relief  to  the  hot,  tossing  sensation  of  balancing 
values  in  her  mind,  to  remember  that  it  was  the  day  of  the 
Catechism  examination,  which  would  be  viva  voce. 

She  acquitted  herself  very  badly,  and  the  temptation  to 
retrieve  her  failure  in  the  afternoon  was  irresistible,  when 
she  again  found  herself  placed  next  to  the  prodigy  Marie- 
Louise. 

The  paper  was  headed  "  Histoire  de  Tfiglise,"  and  im- 
mense value  was  attached  to  proficiency  in  the  subject,  stren- 
uously taught  to  the  convent  pupils  out  of  enormous  old- 
fashioned  volumes  containing  much  loyal  fiction  with  a 
modicum  of  distorted  historical  fact. 

Alex  fell. 

She  could  overlook  her  neighbour's  papers  so  easily, 
hardly  even  turning  her  head,  that  it  only  struck  her  as  in- 
convenient, and  did  not  awake  in  her  any  fear  of  detection, 
when  presently  Marie-Louise  pulled  a  piece  of  blotting- 
paper  towards  her  so  that  it  covered  the  page  on  which  she 
was  working. 

Alex  finished  the  question  to  which  Marie-Louise  had 
unwittingly  supplied  her  with  material  for  the  answer,  and 
looked  about  her,  subconsciously  waiting  for  the  removal 
of  the  blotting-paper.  Her  eyes  met  those  of  a  younger 
child,  seated  exactly  opposite  to  her,  whose  sharp,  dark 
gaze  was  fixed  upon  her  with  a  sort  of  eager,  contemptuous 
horror.  In  that  instant,  when  it  seemed  as  though  her  heart 
had  stopped  beating,  Alex  knew  herself  detected. 

The  colour  rushed  from  her  face  and  she  felt  cold  and 
giddy. 

Lacking  the  instinctive  guard  against  self -betrayal  which 
is  the  hall-mark  of  the  habitual  deceiver,  her  terrified  gaze 
turned  straight  to  Marie-Louise. 

[80] 


THE    END    OF   AN    ERA 

The  smooth,  dark  head  was  bent  low,  one  hand  still 
clutched  at  the  covering  blotting-paper,  and  the  ear  and 
piece  of  cheek  which  were  all  that  Alex  could  see,  were 
scarlet. 

Marie-Louise  knew. 

The  sharp-eyed  child  opposite  had  seen  Alex  cheat,  and 
had  no  doubt  conveyed  a  silent  telegraphic  warning. 

It  seemed  to  Alex  that  the  world  had  stopped.  Accusa- 
tion, disgrace,  expulsion,  all  whirled  through  her  mind  and 
left  no  permanent  image  there.  Her  imagination  stopped 
utterly  dead  at  the  horror  of  it. 

She  sat  perfectly  motionless  for  the  remaining  hours  of 
the  morning,  unconscious  of  the  passage  of  time,  only  con- 
scious of  an  increasing  sense  of  physical  sickness. 

It  was  an  absolute  relief  to  her  when  the  bell  rang  and 
she  found  herself  obliged  to  get  up  and  move  across  the 
long  class-room  with  the  others  to  give  up  her  papers. 

"  Vous  etes  malade,  Alexandra  ?  " 

"  J'ai  mal-au-coeur,"  said  Alex  faintly. 

She  was  sent  to  the  infirmary  to  lie  down,  and  the  old 
lay-sister  in  charge  of  it  was  so  kind  to  her,  and  com- 
miserated her  wan,  forlorn  appearance  so  pityingly,  that 
Alex  burst  into  a  flood  of  tears  that  relieved  the  tension 
of  her  body,  and  sent  her,  quivering,  but  uncomprehendingly 
sensible  of  reHef,  to  rest  exhaustedly  upon  the  narrow  in- 
firmary bed  with  little  white  curtains  drawn  all  round  it. 

No  doubt  every  one  would  soon  know  of  her  disgrace, 
and  she  would  be  expelled,  to  the  shame  and  anger  of  her 
father  and  mother,  and  the  downfall  of  all  her  boastings 
to  Barbara.  No  doubt  God  had  abandoned  one  so  unworthy 
of  His  forgiveness  —  but  Soeur  Clementine  was  kind,  and 
it  seemed,  in  the  incredible  comfort  of  a  little  human  tender- 
ness, that  nothing  else  mattered. 

And,  after  all,  that  hour's  anticipation  proved  to  be  the 
worst  that  happened  to  her.  She  went  downstairs  for  the 
evening  preparation,  and  Marie-Louise,  a  trusted  enfant 

[8i] 


CONSEQUENCES 


de  Marie,  obtained  permission  to  speak  to  her  alone,  and 
solemnly  conducted  her  to  the  lavatory,  as  the  most  private 
place  in  the  school. 

Standing  over  the  sink,  with  its  stiff  and  solitary  tap  of 
cold  water,  Marie-Louise  conducted  her  inquiry  with  busi- 
ness-like, passionless  directness. 

Alex  made  no  attempt  either  to  deny  her  sin  or  to  palliate 
it.  She  was  mentally  and  emotionally  far  too  much  ex- 
hausted for  any  effort,  and  it  did  not  even  occur  to  her  that 
any  excuse  could  avail  her  anything. 

Marie-Louise  was  not  at  all  unkind. 

She  knew  all  about  la  charite,  and  was  agreeably  con- 
scious of  exercising  this  reputable  virtue  to  the  full,  when 
she  informed  Alex  that  no  one  should  ever  know  of  the 
lapse  from  her,  provided  that  Alex,  making  her  own  ex- 
planation to  the  class-mistress,  should  withdraw  her  papers 
from  the  examination. 

**  But  what  can  I  say  to  her  ?  '*  asked  Alex. 

"  Quant  a  ga,"  said  Marie^Louise,  in  the  detached  tones 
of  one  who  had  accomplished  her  duty  and  felt  no  further 
interest  on  the  point  at  issue,  "  quant  a  (ja,  debrouillez-vous 
avec  votre  conscience." 

To  this  task  she  left  Alex. 

And  Alex  ended  by  doing  nothing  at  all.  Partly  from 
inertia,  partly  because  she  knew  that  Marie-Louise  would 
never  ask  her  what  she  had  done,  she  shirked  the  shame 
and  trouble  of  confession  to  her  class-mistress,  and  let  her 
papers  go  in  with  the  others.  She  knew  that  she  would 
not  get  a  high  place,  for  her  work  all  through  the  term  had 
been  bad,  and  would  have  to  be  taken  into  consideration, 
and  over  all  the  remaining  papers  she  muddled  hopelessly. 
Besides,  she  was  leaving  for  good,  and  no  one  would  know. 

She  had  lost  her  self-respect  when  she  first  realized  that 
she  was  cheating,  and  it  was  then,  as  she  neared  the  comple- 
tion of  her  seventeenth  year,  that  the  belief  was  ineradicably 
planted  in  Alex*  soul  that  she  had  been  born  with  a  nat- 
ural love  of  evil,  and  that  goodness  was  an  abstract  atti- 

[82] 


THE    END    OF   AN   ERA 

tude  of  mind  to  which  she  could  never  do  more  than  aspire 
fruitlessly,  with  no  slightest  expectation  of  attainment.  She 
was  further  conscious  of  an  intense  determination  to  hide 
the  knowledge  of  her  own  innate  badness  from  every  one. 

If  she  were  ever  seen  in  her  true  colours,  no  one  would 
love  her,  and  Alex  already  knew  dimly,  and  with  a  further 
sense  of  having  strange,  low  standards  of  her  own,  that 
she  wanted  to  be  loved  more  than  anything  in  the  world. 

Far  more  than  she  wanted  to  be  good. 

The  affair  of  the  examination  passed,  and  although  Alex 
did  not  forget  it,  she  mostly  remembered  it  as  merely  the 
culminating  scandal  of  a  succession  of  petty  evasions  and 
cowardly  deceptions. 

She  left  Liege  without  regret. 

She  had  hated  the  physical  discomfort  of  the  conventual 
system,  the  insufficient  hours  of  sleep,  the  bitter  cold  of  the 
Belgian  winters  and  the  streaming  rain  that  defiled  the  sum- 
mers ;  she  had  hated  the  endless  restrictions  and  the  minute 
system  of  surveillance  that  was  never  relaxed;  above  all, 
she  had  hated  the  sense  of  her  own  isolation  in  a  crowd,  her 
own  utter  absence  of  attraction  for  her  kind. 

It  seemed  to  Alex  that  when  she  joined  the  mysterious 
ranks  of  grown-up-people  everything  would  be  different. 
She  never  doubted  that  with  long  dresses  and  piled-up  hair, 
her  whole  personality  would  change,  and  the  meaningless 
chaos  of  life  reduce  itself  to  some  comprehensible  solution. 

Everything  all  her  life  had  been  tending  towards  the  busi- 
ness of  *'  growing  up."  Everything  that  she  was  taught  at 
home  impressed  the  theory  that  her  "  coming  out "  would 
usher  in  the  reaHties  of  life,  and  nothing  impressed  her 
more  with  a  sense  of  the  tremendous  importance  of  the 
approaching  change  than  Lady  Isabel's  greeting,  when  she 
came  back  to  Clevedon  Square  after  her  final  term  at  Liege. 

"  We've  put  off  Scotland  for  a  week,  darling  —  your  fa- 
ther's been  so  good  about  it  —  so  that  I  may  see  about  your 
clothes.  I've  made  appointments  with  Marguerite  and 
the  other  places  for  you,  so  there'll  be  nothin'  to  do  but 

[83] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


try  on,  but,  of  course,  I  shall  have  to  see  the  things  myself 
before  they  finish  them,  and  tell  them  about  the  colours; 
they're  sure  to  want  to  touch  everything  up  with  pink  or 
blue,  and  white  is  so  much  prettier  for  a  young  girl.  White 
with  a  tiny  little  diamente  edging,  I  thought,  for  one  of  your 
evenin'  dresses  .  .  . 

"  The  first  thing,  of  course,  is  your  hair.  Louise  must  go 
with  you  to  Hugo's,  and  watch  them  very  carefully  while 
they  do  it  in  two  or  three  different  styles,  then  she'll  be  able 
to  do  it  for  you  every  evening.  I  expect  she'll  have  to  do 
it  every  day  to  begin  with,  but  you  must  try  and  learn.  I 
should  like  you  to  be  able  to  be  independent  of  a  maid  in 
that  sort  of  way  —  one  never  knows  quite  that  some  time 
one  mightn't  find  oneself  stranded  for  a  day  or  two.  .  .  . 

"  I  don't  think  your  hair  will  need  waving,  Alex,  which 
is  such  a  comfort.  So  many  women  have  to  wear  their 
fringe  in  curlers  every  night  —  thank  Heaven,  I've  never  had 
to.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  say  fringes  are  goin'  out  now, 
but  I'm  certainly  not  goin'  to  let  yours  grow  until  we're  quite 
certain  about  it  .  .  .  and  a  bald  forehead  is  always  so  un- 
becomin'." 

Alex  listened  with  a  sense  of  importance  and  excitement, 
but  she  was  also  rather  bewildered.  The  contrast  between 
all  this  preoccupation  with  her  clothes  and  her  appearance, 
and  the  austere  mental  striving  after  spiritual  or  moral  re- 
sults which  had  permeated  the  convent  atmosphere,  was  too 
violent. 

"  You'll  be  interested  in  it  all,  my  darling,  won't  you  ?  " 
asked  Lady  Isabel  disappointedly.  '*  I  couldn't  bear  to  have 
a  daughter  who  didn't  care  about  her  things  — :  some  girls 
are  like  that  —  so  disappointin' ;  after  one's  had  all  the 
trouble  of  their  upbringin'  and  is  lookin'  forward  to  a  little 
reward." 

Alex  could  find  no  words  in  which  to  explain  what  she 
knew  quite  well,  that  she  was  as  full  of  eager  anticipations 
as  Lady  Isabel  could  wish,  but  was  too  much  bewildered  by 

[84] 


THE    END    OF   AN   ERA 

the  novelty  of  it  all,  as  yet,  to  give  any  expression  to  them. 

She  became  rather  boisterous  and  unconvincing  in  her 
endeavours  to  express,  by  means  which  were  not  spontaneous, 
the  pleasure  and  excitement  expected  of  her. 

"  You'll  learn  to  move  prettily  and  quietly,  darling,  and 
we  must  see  about  some  dancin'  lessons  before  next  year. 
Dancin'  fashions  alter  so  quickly  now-a-days,"  said  Lady 
Isabel,  her  low,  gentle  tones  a  shade  lower  and  more  gentle 
than  usual. 

"  But  I  shan't  go  to  balls  —  yet,"  stammered  Alex. 

She  and  Barbara  had  only  been  allowed  a  very  few  chil- 
dren's parties,  and  for  the  last  few  years  she  had  been  con- 
sidered too  old  for  these.  She  thought  of  a  ball  as  a  pro- 
longed, glorified  party. 

"  Not  until  after  your  presentation,  of  course,  and  that 
won't  be  till  the  spring.  But  there  may  be  one  or  two 
aflfairs  in  the  country  at  Christmas,  if  I  take  you  to  stay 
about,  as  I  hope. 

"  You  see,  darling,  my  plan  is  to  let  you  have  the  next 
two  months  in  the  country  with  little  Barbara,  just  as  usual 
—  only  you  must  take  great  care  not  to  let  yourself  get 
freckled  in  the  sun  —  and  then,  when  you  come  back  to  town 
in  October,  you  can  have  your  hair  properly  put  up,  and 
come  about  with  me,  so  as  to  get  to  know  people  and  make 
a  little  beginnin'  before  there's  any  question  of  really  doing 
the  season  properly  next  summer." 

Alex  began  to  feel  vastly  important.  She  had  never  been 
the  centre  of  so  much  attention  before. 

Evidently  this  affair  of  coming  out  was  the  culminating 
point  to  which  all  life  had  hitherto  been  tending. 

Even  Barbara  treated  her  with  a  rather  envious  respect 
now. 

Only  Cedric  remained  unimpressed,  and  treated  his  eld- 
est sister's  marked  tendency  to  assume  airs  of  extreme  ma- 
turity with  silent  indifference. 

His  school  career  was  proceeding  more  triumphantly  than 

[8s] 


CONSEQUENCES 


ever,  and  his  "  removes "  succeeded  one  another  with  a 
rapidity  only  less  startling  than  his  increasing  reputation 
as  a  cricketer. 

He  spent  most  of  his  hohdays  with  a  schoolfellow,  and 
showed  himself  rather  scornful  of  girls  in  general  and  of 
his  sisters  in  particular,  although  he  played  willingly  enough 
with  little  Pamela,  who  had  grown  to  an  attractive  and 
talkative  age. 

Barbara  asked  him  once,  with  the  touch  of  slyness  char- 
acteristic of  her  in  certain  moods,  whether  he  remembered 
Marie  Munroe. 

"  Red-haired  American  kid  ?  Oh,  yes,"  said  Cedric  loft- 
ily. "  Didn't  she  have  a  sister  who  was  bosom  friends  with 
Alex  at  Liege,  or  some  rot  of  that  kind?  " 

And  Alex  had  felt  unaccountably  relieved  at  the  impli- 
cation of  the  evanescent  character  of  Cedric's  whilom  ad- 
miration. 

They  spent  August  and  September  at  the  seaside  on  the 
Cornish  coast. 

Alex  enjoyed  the  daily  bathing,  and  scrambling  over  the 
rocks  barefooted,  and  the  picnic  teas  in  any  sheltered  cove 
that  old  Nurse  judged  sufficiently  protected  from  the  profane 
gaze  of  possible  trippers.  But  she  had  all  the  time  the 
sense  that  these  hot,  leisurely  days  were  only  a  time  of  wait- 
ing, and  even  when  she  enjoyed  herself  most  she  was  con- 
scious of  a  gnawing  impatience  for  the  next  step. 

The  week  in  London  before  Lady  Isabel  and  Sir  Francis 
started  for  Scotland  had  rather  disappointed  Alex,  although 
she  did  not  own  it,  even  to  herself. 

Perpetual  "  tryings  on "  in  hot  weather  had  proved  a 
tiring  performance,  and  her  feet  ached  from  standing  and 
from  the  hot  pavement,  so  that  she  dragged  herself  rather 
than  walked,  or  stood  on  one  foot  so  as  to  save  the  other, 
which  had  vexed  Lady  Isabel,  and  led  to  a  long  admonition 
as  to  the  importance  of  moving  properly  and  always  holding 
oneself  upright. 

Moreover,  Alex,  although  she  did  not  give  very  much 

[86] 


THE   END   OF   AN   ERA 

thought  to  her  own  looks  as  a  rule,  had  always  expected 
that  as  soon  as  she  grew  up  she  would  almost  automatically 
become  very  beautiful,  and  it  vexed  and  surprised  her  to 
find  that  her  new  frocks,  still  in  a  very  incompleted  stage, 
did  not  at  once  produce  any  startling  change  in  her  appear- 
ance. It  was  also  disappointing  that  her  mother  and  her 
mother's  dressmaker  should  so  often  seem  to  find  in  her 
hitherto  unsuspected  deficiencies. 

"  Mam'selle  won't  be  able  to  wear  elbow-sleeves  just  at 
present,  Moddam,  Vm  afraid  —  at  least,  not  until  we've  got 
rid  of  that  redness." 

"  Dear  me,  no !  I  suppose  that  comes  from  keepin'  her 
elbows  on  a  school  desk  —  how  very  vexin*.  Really,  the 
nuns  must  have  been  very  careless  to  let  you  get  into  the 
way  of  it,  Alex.     And  it's  made  your  shoulders  round,  too." 

"  Mam'selle  must  keep  her  shoulders  well  back  if  that 
white  chiffon  is  to  look  like  anything  at  all,"  chimed  in 
Madame  Marguerite  most  impressively.  *'  It  will  simply  be 
ruination  to  let  it  drop  like  that  in  the  front  .  .  .  takes  away 
all  the  smartness  from  it." 

Alex  straightened  herself  uneasily. 

*'  It's  such  a  simple  little  frock,  the  whole  thing  is  how 
it's  worn  .  .  ." 

Which  made  Alex  feel  miserably  unequal  to  the  respon- 
sibility laid  upon  her. 

"  Her  neck  is  very  thin,"  sighed  Lady  Isabel,  and  Madame 
Marguerite,  her  large  head  with  its  weight  of  elaborate 
yellow  waves  well  on  one  side  as  she  gazed  at  Alex,  had 
looked  very  disparaging  indeed  as  she  said,  in  tones  more 
consolatory  than  hopeful : 

"  Of  course,  Mam'selle  may  fill  out  a  bit  before  next 
year." 

Alex,  in  her  heart,  had  been  thankful  when  it  was  all 
over,  and  she  had  gone  back  to  the  old  blue  cotton  frocks 
that  were  to  be  worn  out  at  the  seaside. 

Her  only  responsibility  there  was  the  daily  struggle  of 
putting  up  her  hair. 

[87] 


CONSEQUENCES 


To  her  disgust,  and  to  Barbara's  derision,  the  hair-dresser 
had  insisted  upon  a  large,  bun-like  frame,  which  made  her 
head  ache,  and,  pinned  on  by  her  unskilful  hands,  displayed 
a  strong  tendency  to  slip  down  the  back  of  her  neck.  And 
however  much  she  might  brush  and  pull  her  hair  over  it, 
there  always  appeared  a  hiatus  sooner  or  later,  through 
which  a  large  patch  of  what  Barbara  jeeringly  called  "  false 
horsehair,"  might  plainly  be  seen. 

In  spite  of  it  all,  however,  Alex  enjoyed  those  last  school- 
room days  of  hers  more  than  any  she  had  yet  known. 

Real  life  was  going  to  begin,  and  though  Alex  had  no 
idea  as  to  how  the  transformation  would  be  effected,  she 
was  convinced  that  everything  which  she  had  longed  for, 
and  utterly  missed,  throughout  her  schooldays,  would  now 
be  hers. 


[88] 


VII 

London  Season 

ALEX*  first  London  season,  from  the  very  extrava- 
gance of  her  expectations,  was  a  disappointment  to 
her. 

Her  own  appearance,  indeed,  in  her  first  ball-dress,  sur- 
prised and  delighted  her,  and  she  stood  before  the  great 
pier  glass  in  the  drawing-room,  under  the  chandelier  which 
had  been  specially  lit  for  the  occasion,  and  gazed  at  her 
reflection  with  incredulous  admiration. 

Her  dress,  in  the  height  of  the  prevailing  fashion,  had 
been  the  subject  of  Lady  Isabel's  minute  and  careful  con- 
sultations with  Madame  Marguerite  of  New  Bond  Street. 
Of  stiff  white  satin,  the  neck  was  cut  into  a  hard  square, 
and  the  bodice,  as  it  was  still  called,  unsoftened  except  for 
a  small  draping  of  pleated  white  chiffon  held  on  the  left 
shoulder  with  a  cluster  of  dead-white  roses,  which  were 
repeated  at  the  side  of  the  broad,  white-ribbon  belt.  The 
most  prominent  feature  of  the  dress  was  the  immensity  of 
the  sleeves,  stiffened  within  by  strips  of  petersham,  and 
standing  well  up  from  the  shoulders.  Thence,  the  monstrous, 
balloon-shaped  things  narrowed  imperceptibly,  and  were 
gathered  in  just  below  the  elbow,  leaving  no  hiatus  visible 
between  them  and  the  mousquetaire  white-kid  gloves. 

The  skirt  had  no  train,  but  fell  into  plain,  heavy  folds, 
sweeping  the  ground,  and  with  a  slight  additional  length  of 
"  tail,"  and  a  considerable  additional  fulness  behind.  A 
white  ostrich- feather  fan  hung  by  white  satin  ribbon  from 
her  waist. 

"  It  looks  charming,"  said  Lady  Isabel  delightedly.  "  Bet- 
ter than  your  presentation  frock." 

[89] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


The  servants,  who  had  respectfully  petitioned  through 
Lady  Isabel's  maid  to  be  allowed  to  see  Miss  Clare  in  her 
ball-dress  before  she  started,  were  grouped  in  the  doorway, 
the  long  white  streamers  of  the  maids'  caps  contrasting 
sharply  with  their  neat  black  dresses. 

Old  Nurse,  a  privileged  personage,  was  right  inside  the 
drawing-room,  inspecting  critically. 

"  I  never  thought  you'd  look  so  well.  Miss  Alex,"  she 
observed  candidly.  "  They've  hid  your  failings  something 
wonderful,  and  your  hair  and  complexion  was  always  good, 
thanks  to  the  care  I've  took  of  them  —  that  I  will  say." 

"  Don't  those  shoes  pinch,  Alex?  "  asked  Barbara,  looking 
on  enviously  in  her  plain  schoolroom  frock  and  strapped 
shoes,  with  her  hair  still  hanging  down  her  back. 

Alex  did  not  care  whether  her  pointed,  white  satin  shoes 
pinched  her  feet  or  not.  She  was  too  happy  in  her  first 
triumph. 

It  was  not  quite  a  solitary  triumph,  for  Sir  Francis,  after 
a  prolonged  gazing  through  his  double  eye-glasses  that  made 
her  flush  more  than  ever  from  nervousness,  gave  one  of  his 
rare  smiles  of  gratification  and  said : 

"  Very  pretty  indeed.  I  congratulate  you  on  your  ap- 
pearance, my  dear  child." 

But  it  was  to  Lady  Isabel  that  he  turned  next  moment, 
with  that  sudden  softened  glance  that  he  never  bestowed 
elsewhere. 

"  How  beautifully  you've  dressed  her,  my  dear.  You  will 
be  taken  for  sisters,  now  that  she  is  in  long  dresses." 

The  compliment  was  not  ill-deserved,  and  Alex,  watching 
her  mother's  exquisite  flush,  felt  a  vague  dissatisfaction 
with  her  own  immaturity. 

She  might  be  pretty,  with  youthful  colouring  and  smooth 
skin,  but  she  lacked  the  poise  that  added  charm  to  her  moth- 
er's beauty,  and  a  struggling  consciousness  of  that  lack  dis- 
turbed and  vexed  her. 

"  I  think  she's  better  without  any  ornament,  don't  you, 
Francis  ?  "  asked  her  mother  critically.     "  Some  girls  wear 

[90] 


LONDON    SEASON 


pearls,  I  know,  but  I  never  quite  like  it  —  not  the  first  year, 
anyway." 

Her  opera  cloak  over  her  shoulders,  its  cape-like  outline 
and  heavy,  turned-back  collar  of  swan-down  adding  to  the 
already  disproportionate  width  of  the  upper  part  of  her 
person,  Alex  followed  Lady  Isabel  into  th€  carriage. 

She  wore  nothing  over  her  head,  for  fear  of  disarranging 
the  light  Princess-of- Wales'  fringe  curling  on  her  forehead. 

That  first  ball  remained  in  her  mind  as  a  medley  of 
valse  tunes,  quadrilles  and  jigging  polkas,  blazing  lights  and 
red  and  white  flowers  everywhere,  and  a  sequence  of 
strange  young  men  brought  up  in  rapid  succession  by  the 
daughters  of  her  hostess  and  introduced  in  an  unvarying 
formula,  to  which  each  responded  by  a  bow  and  a  polite 
request  for  the  pleasure  of  a  dance  with  her.  Alex  danced 
readily  enough,  but  found  conversation  strangely  difficult, 
expecting  she  knew  not  what  profundities  of  intercourse 
which  were  never  forthcoming.  Her  chief  gratification 
was  that  of  seeing  Lady  Isabel's  pretty,  pleased  smile  at 
the  sight  of  her  daughter  dancing. 

"Are  you  enjoying  yourself,  darling?"  she  asked  sev- 
eral times,  as  Alex  returned  between  each  dance  to  the  row 
of  gilt  chairs  against  the  wall. 

Alex  said  "  Yes  "  sincerely  enough,  but  she  was  all  the 
time  reminded  of  that  strange,  disconcerting  experience  that 
had  been  hers  a  year  or  two  earlier,  when  she  had  sought 
to  persuade  herself  of  a  great  success  with  the  boy  Noel 
Cardew. 

She  boasted  of  her  enjoyment  of  the  ball  to  Barbara  next 
day,  and  said  that  she  had  been  so  busy  dancing  that  she 
had  never  gone  down  to  supper  at  all. 

"  But  that  must  never  happen  again,"  Lady  Isabel  said, 
horrified.  "  Girls  do  that  sort  of  thing  at  first,  when  they're 
foolish,  and  then  they  get  over-tired  and  lose  all  their  looks 
and  have  no  more  good  times." 

It  seemed  the  omega  of  disaster. 

Nevertheless,  there  were  other  balls  when  Alex  did  not 

[91] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


go  down  to  supper,  sometimes  because  no  one  had  asked 
her  to  do  so. 

She  nearly  always  had  partners,  for  she  danced  reason- 
ably, though  not  superlatively,  well,  and  introductions  were 
still  the  fashion.  But  the  number  of  her  partners  depended 
very  largely  upon  the  attentiveness  of  her  hostess  or  of  her 
hostess's  daughters.  Young  men  did  not  always  claim 
dances  from  her,  although  they  had  been  amongst  her  part- 
ners at  the  ball  of  the  week  before.  Nor  did  many  of  them 
ask  for  two  or  three  dances  in  one  evening. 

Lady  Isabel  had  said,  "  Never  more  than  three  dances 
with  the  same  man,  Alex,  at  the  very  outside.  It's  such 
bad  form  to  make  yourself  conspicuous  with  any  one  — 
your  father  would  dislike  it  very  much." 

Alex  bore  the  warning  carefully  in  mind,  and  was  naively 
surprised  that  no  occasion  for  making  practical  applica- 
tion of  it  should  occur.  She  was  intensely  anxious  to  be 
liked  and  admired,  and  she  strangely  confounded  the  two 
issues  in  her  own  mind.  Attributes  such  as  her  clear  skin, 
her  exquisitely-kept  hair,  or  her  expensive  frocks,  she 
thought  would  promote  interest  in  her  amongst  her  fellow- 
creatures,  and  to  the  same  end  she  simulated  an  enthusiasm 
—  which  was  so  entirely  foreign  to  her  real  feelings  that  it 
lacked  any  semblance  of  body  —  for  the  crazes  of  her  imme- 
diate generation,  centred  in  Planchette  and  in  the  publication 
of  Barabbas.  She  was  full  of  preconceived  ideas  as  to 
that  which  constituted  attractiveness,  and  in  her  very  ardour 
to  realize  the  conventional  ideal  of  the  day  failed  entirely 
to  attract.  In  intercourse  with  other  girls,  still  in  their  first 
or  second  season,  she  slowly  began  to  suspect  the  deficiencies 
in  herself. 

'*  I'm  engaged  for  nearly  every  single  valse  at  the  Duch- 
ess's ball  on  Tuesday  already !  "  a  very  young,  childish-look- 
ing little  creature  exclaimed  in  Alex'  hearing. 

Alex  was  astounded.     What  could  the  little  thing  mean? 

*'  Nearly  all  my  last  night's  partners  will  be  there,  and 

[92] 


LONDON   SEASON 


they've  all  asked  me  for  dances,  and  some  for  two  or 
three,"  said  the  child  with  ingenuous  pride. 

Alex  was  frankly  amazed.  Lady  MoUie  was  not  par- 
ticularly pretty,  and  her  conversation  was  the  veriest  stream 
of  prattle.  Yet  she  was  asked  to  reserve  the  favour  of  her 
dances  three  days  or  four  days  in  advance,  and  the  expe- 
rience was  evidently  no  new  one  to  her,  although  she  had 
only  come  out  a  few  weeks  earlier  than  Alex ! 

It  was  the  same  little  Lady  MoUie  who  gave  Alex  a  fur- 
ther shock  by  demanding  of  her  very  seriously: 

**  Do  you  know  a  girl  called  Miss  Torrance,  a  girl  with 
very  fair  hair?     She  says  she  was  at  school  with  you." 

"  Queenie  Torrance?  Oh,  yes!"  said  Alex,  the  old  fer- 
vour rushing  to  her  voice  at  the  sudden  memory  of  Queenie, 
who  had  left  her  letters  unanswered  —  of  whom  she  had 
heard  nothing  for  two  years. 

"  She's  tremendously  admired  by  some  people,"  said  Lady 
Mollie,  shaking  her  head  with  a  quaint  air  of  sapience.  "  I 
know  two  or  three  who  rave  about  her.  Mother  says  she's 
rather  inclined  to  be  fast.  I  think  people  don't  like  her 
father  very  much,  and  he  generally  takes  her  about.  You 
don't  know  them  very  well,  do  you  ?  " 

Alex  hastily  disclaimed  any  intimacy  with  Queenie's  un- 
popular parent.  She  felt  disloyal  to  Queenie  for  the  eager- 
ness with  which  she  did  so. 

Two  nights  later,  at  one  of  the  big  evening  receptions 
that  Alex  enjoyed  least  of  any  form  of  entertainment.  Miss 
Torrance's  name  was  again  mentioned  to  her. 

She  was  listening  to  the  conversation  of  a  brilliantly-good- 
looking  young  German  Jew,  whose  name  of  Goldstein,  al- 
ready spoken  with  bated  breath  in  financial  circles,  conveyed 
less  to  her  inexperience  than  did  the  dark,  glowing  eyes, 
swarthy  skin  and  the  Semitic  curve  of  his  handsome  nose. 
His  voice  was  very  slightly  guttural,  and  he  slurred  his  r's 
all  but  imperceptibly  as  he  spoke. 

She  found  that  conversation  with  him  was  exceedingly 

[93] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


easy,  and  translated  the  faint  hint  of  servility  in  his  defer- 
ence, as  did  most  women  not  of  his  own  race,  into  sympathy 
with  her  utterances. 

"  You  think  so,  you  really  think  so  ?  "  he  inquired  gently, 
when  she  expressed  a  hanale  admiration  for  the  prettiness 
of  some  girl  whose  entry,  preceded  by  that  of  an  insig- 
nificant couple,  had  made  a  slight  stir  round  the  huge  open 
doorway  of  the  reception-room. 

"  Yes,'*  said  Alex,  emboldened  by  the  interested  look  in 
the  dark  eyes  which  he  kept  upon  her  face,  as  though  find- 
ing it  more  worth  while  to  gaze  upon  her  than  upon  the 
entering  beauty. 

"  I  have  seen  more  beautiful  faces  than  hers,  neverthe- 
less," he  responded. 

The  eloquence  of  his  look  made  Alex  feel  as  though  she 
had  received  a  compliment,  and  she  ^blushed.  As  though 
to  cover  her  shyness,  the  young  Jew  went  on  speaking.  "  I 
wonder  if  you  know  Miss  Torrance  —  Miss  Queenie  Tor- 
rance ?  " 

She  noticed  that  his  throaty  voice  lingered  over  the  sylla- 
bles a  little. 

**  She  was  my  great  friend  at  school." 

"  Indeed !  What  a  delightful  friendship  for  both,  if  I 
may  say  so.  I  think  I  may  say  that  I,  also,  have  the  priv- 
ilege of  counting  myself  amongst  the  friends  of  Miss  Tor- 
rance." 

"  I  haven't  seen  her  since  she  left  school,"  said  Alex 
wistfully.     "  I  should  like  to  see  her." 

"  You  spoke  of  beauty  just  now,"  said  the  young  Jew 
deliberately.  "  To  my  mind  Miss  Torrance  was  the  beauty 
of  the  season,  when  she  came  out  last  year." 

She  felt  faintly  surprised,  but  spoke  hastily  lest  he  should 
think  her  jealous,  although  he  had  carefully  emphasized  the 
date  of  Queenie's  appearance  into  society. 

"  I  heard  only  the  other  day  how  much  she  was  ad- 
mired." 

[94] 


LONDON   SEASON 


Goldstein's  dark  face  grew  darker.  "  She  is  very  much 
admired  indeed,"  he  said  emphatically. 

*'  Perhaps  she  will  be  here  tonight,"  Alex  suggested,  think- 
ing that  she  would  like  to  see  Queenie  grown-up. 

"  She  is  not  coming  tonight,"  said  Goldstein  with  calm 
assurance.  "  Are  you  going  to  the  Duchess's  ball  on  Tues- 
day?   But  I  need  not  ask." 

Alex  felt  unreasonably  flattered  at  the  homage  implied, 
rather  than  expressed,  in  the  tone,  and  replied  in  the  affirma- 
tive. 

"  Then  you  will  see  Miss  Torrance." 

"  Oh,  I'm  glad,"  said  Alex.  She  felt  rather  elated  at  the 
success  which  her  friend  must  have  undoubtedly  met  with, 
to  be  so  much  admired,  and  she  remembered  with  added  re- 
sentment Lady  Isabel's  old  inquiry :  "  Torrance  —  Tor- 
rance —  who  is  Torrance  ?  " 

"  Did  you  know  that  the  girl  I  was  at  Liege  with,  Queenie 
Torrance,  came  out  last  year,  and  every  one  says  she's 
lovely  ?  "  she  demanded  of  her  mother. 

'*  I'd  forgotten  you  were  at  school  with  her.  I  remember 
now,"  said  Lady  Isabel  thoughtfully.  "  Who  says  she  is 
lovely?" 

*'  Oh,  Lady  Mollie  and  every  one.  That  Mr.  Goldstein 
I  was  talking  to." 

"  Goldstein !  "  exclaimed  her  mother  with  infinite  con- 
tempt. She  was  silent  for  a  little  while  and  then  said, 
"  I've  heard  about  the  Torrance  girl.  Men  —  of  a  sort  — 
admire  her  very  much  indeed,  but  I  should  be  sorry  if  you 
copied  her  style,  Alex." 

Alex  felt  more  curious  than  ever.  Blindly  though  she  had 
adored  Queenie,  it  had  not  occurred  to  her  that  she  would  be 
considered  very  pretty,  and  she  wondered  greatly  concerning 
the  development  of  her  old  playmate. 

When  she  did  see  Queenie,  at  the  Duchess's  ball  as  Gold- 
stein had  predicted.  Lady  Isabel  was  not  with  her.  Excess 
of  fatigue  had  unwillingly  constrained  her  to  stay  at  home, 

[95] 


CONSEQUENCES^ 


while  Sir  Francis,  bored  but  courteous,  escorted  his  eldest 
daughter  in  her  stead. 

They  arrived  late,  and  stood  for  a  few  minutes  in  the 
doorway,  watching  the  kaleidoscopic  scene  of  colour  and 
movement  in  the  great  illuminated  ballroom. 

Alex'  attention  was  attracted  by  a  group  of  men  all 
gathered  near  the  door,  and  prominent  among  them  Gold- 
stein, his  eager,  searching  gaze  fixed  upon  the  broad  stair- 
way without,  up  and  down  which  innumerable  figures  passed 
and  re-passed.  From  the  sudden  lightning  flash  in  his  ardent 
black  gaze,  not  less  than  from  a  sort  of  movement  in- 
stantly communicated  to  the  whole  group,  Alex  guessed  that 
he  had  focussed  the  object  of  his  quest. 

The  announcement  made  at  the  head  of  the  stairs  was 
inaudible  amid  the  crashing  of  dance  music,  but  Alex  recog- 
nized the  entering  couple  in  a  flash. 

Colonel  Torrance,  white-haired,  with  black  moustache 
and  eyebrows,  upright  and  soldierly  still,  had  changed  less 
than  Queenie.  She  looked  much  taller  than  Alex  had  im- 
agined her,  and  her  graceful  outline  was  fuller,  but  she 
moved  exquisitely. 

Her  very  fair  hair,  at  a  time  when  every  woman  wore 
a  curled  fringe,  was  combed  straight  back  from  her  rounded 
brow,  leaving  only  the  merest  escaping  curls  at  either  tem- 
ple, and  gathered  into  the  ultra-fashionable  "  jug-handle  " 
knot  on  the  top  of  her  head.  She  wore  a  wreath  of  tiny 
blue  forget-me-nots  that  deepened  the  tint  of  her  grey-blue 
eyes,  and  the  colour  was  repeated  freely  in  the  deep  frills 
and  ruchings  of  her  white,  decolletee  dress,  of  an  elabora- 
tion that  Alex  instinctively  knew  her  mother  would  not 
have  countenanced.  Turquoises  were  twisted  round  the 
white,  full  column  of  her  throat,  and  clasped  her  rounded 
arms. 

Alex  watched  her  eagerly. 

Every  man  in  the  little  waiting  group  was  pressing  round 
her,  claiming  first  possession  of  her  attention. 

The  faint,  remotely  smiling  sweetness  of  Queenie*s  heart- 

[96] 


LONDON   SEASON 


shaped  mouth  recalled  to  Alex  with  extraordinary  vividness 
the  schoolgirl  at  the  Liege  convent. 

Goldstein,  his  eyes  flaming,  stood  demonstratively  wait- 
ing, with  insolent  security  in  his  bearing,  while  she  dispensed 
her  favours  right  and  left,  always  with  the  same  chilly, 
composed  sweetness. 

The  music,  which  had  ceased,  broke  into  the  lilt  of  the 
Blue  Danube,  and  on  the  instant  Goldstein  imperiously  ap- 
proached Queenie.  She  swayed  towards  him,  still  smiling 
slightly,  and  they  drifted  into  the  throng  of  dancers.  Alex 
turned  round  with  a  sort  of  gasp. 

What  must  it  feel  like  to  be  the  heroine  of  a  ballroom 
triumph,  to  know  that  a  dozen  men  would  count  the  evening 
worth  while  for  the  privilege  of  dancing  once  with  her,  that 
they  would  throng  in  the  doorway  to  watch  and  wait  for 
her  coming? 

Some  of  them  remained  in  the  doorway  still,  watching 
her  dance,  the  folds  of  her  dress  and  her  great  white  fan 
gathered  into  one  hand,  her  white,  heavy  eyelids  cast  down 
under  her  pure,  open  forehead,  and  Goldstein's  arm  en- 
circling her  waist  as  he  guided  her  steps  skilfully  round 
the  crowded  room.  Alex  saw  that  Sir  Francis,  his  double 
eyeglass  raised,  was  also  watching  the  couple. 

"  I  wonder  who  that  remarkably  pretty  woman  is,  of 
whom  young  Goldstein  is  very  obviously  enamoured  ?  " 

Alex  felt  oddly  that  Sir  Francis  supposed  Queenie  to  be 
of  maturer  years  than  she  in  reality  was. 

"  It's  Queenie  Torrance,  father.  She  was  at  school  with 
me,"  Alex  repeated.  "  I've  not  seen  her  since  she  grew  up 
—  but  she's  only  about  a  year  older  than  I  am." 

"Indeed!" 

Curiosity  as  to  the  unanimity  of  masculine  judgment  made 
Alex  appeal  to  him  with  a  question. 

"  Do  you  think  she's  pretty,  father  ?  " 

"  Exceedingly  striking  —  beautiful,  in  fact,"  said  Sir 
Francis. 

Queenie  was  not  beautiful,  and  Alex  knew  it,  but  the 

[97] 


CONSEQUENCES 


glamour  of  her  magnetic  personality  was  evidently  as  potent 
with  older  men  as  with  young  Goldstein  and  his  contem- 
poraries. Alex  felt  a  curious  pang,  half  of  envy  and  half 
of  wonder. 

Sir  Francis  put  down  his  glasses.  "  A  pity,"  he  said  de- 
liberately, "  that  she  is  not  —  altogether  — "  And  raised  his 
grizzled  eyebrows. 


[98] 


VIII 

Goldstein  and  Queenie 

QUEENIE  TORRANCE  spoke  to  Alex  that  night 
with  characteristic  suavity,  and  showed  pleasure  at 
meeting  her  again. 

"  Those  old  convent  days  seem  a  long  way  off,  don't 
they  ?  "  she  asked,  smiling  a  little. 

Her  glance,  sweeping  the  big  ballroom,  seemed  to  appraise 
its  glories  and  claim  them  for  her  own. 

It  was  the  glance,  rather  than  the  words,  to  which  Alex 
replied. 

"  You're  having  a  splendid  time,  aren't  you,  Queenie  ? 
You  like  being  grown-up  ?  " 

*'  I  adore  it,"  said  Miss  Torrance,  her  eyes  gleaming  like 
stars. 

Alex  did  not  wonder  at  it. 

Night  after  night  she  watched  Queenie  Torrance  accept- 
ing as  her  right  the  homage  of  innumerable  men,  halving 
the  favour  of  her  dances  at  crowded  balls  where  "  wall-flow- 
ers "  were  too  numerous  to  be  rescued  from  oblivion  by 
the  most  determined  of  hostesses,  going  down  to  supper  on 
the  arm  of  young  Goldstein  and  lingering  with  him  in  pro- 
longed tete-d-tete.  Goldstein,  at  the  little  round  table 
across  which  he  leant,  recklessly  oblivious  of  comment, 
endeavouring,  often  fruitlessly,  throughout  a  whole  eve- 
ning, to  obtain  one  direct  look  from  those  widely-set,  down- 
cast eyes  under  their  flaxen  lashes. 

It  was  not  easy,  Alex  found,  to  talk  to  Queenie.  They 
often  met  at  entertainments,  and  once  or  twice  in  the  Park, 
but  Queenie  never  rode  in  the  mornings,  as  Alex  sometimes 
did,  and  Lady  Isabel  did  not  allow  her  daughter  to  take  up 
the  fashionable  practice  of  bicycling  in  Battersea  Park,  at 

[99] 


CONSEQUENCES 


which  Queenie  Torrance,  in  the  neatest  and  most  daring  of 
rational  costumes,  was  reported  to  excel.  Once  Alex,  as 
she  had  said  before  in  her  childish  days,  asked  Lady  Isabel : 

"  Mother,  may  I  ask  Queenie  Torrance  to  tea  here  ?  We 
meet  everywhere,  and  it  will  be  so  odd  if  I  never  ask  her  to 
come  here.     Besides,  I  should  like  to  have  her." 

"  I'm  sorry,  Alex,  but  I'd  rather  you  contented  yourself 
with  meetin'  her  in  society  —  if  you  do." 

"  Why  ?  "  said  Alex  unwisely,  urged  by  some  mysterious 
unreason  to  provoke  the  answer  which  she  already  antici- 
pated with  resentment. 

"  She's  not  the  sort  of  girl  I  should  care  about  you  being 
friends  with  very  much,"  said  Lady  Isabel  without  heat. 
"  I  hear  she's  already  bein'  talked  about." 

Alex  knew  what  the  words  meant,  uttered  by  her  mother 
and  her  mother's  circle  of  intimates. 

"  Why  is  she  being  talked  about  ? "  Alex  asked  rebel- 
liously. 

*'  Any  girl  who  goes  in  for  being  fast  gets  talked  about," 
said  Lady  Isabel  severely.  "  And  it  does  them  no  good  in 
the  long  run  either.  Men  may  flirt  with  girls  of  that  sort, 
and  like  to  dance  with  them  and  pay  them  attention,  but 
they  don't  marry  them.  A  man  likes  his  wife  to  be  simple 
and  well-bred  and  dignified." 

"  I'm  sure  heaps  of  people  would  like  to  marry  Queenie." 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  "  Lady  Isabel  asked  quickly. 

Alex  did  not  reply.  She  only  knew  that  men  looked 
at  Queenie  Torrance  as  they  did  not  look  at  other  women, 
and,  true  to  the  traditions  of  youth  and  of  the  race  to 
which  she  belonged,  the  admiration  of  a  man  for  a  woman, 
to  her  inexperience  spelt  a  proposal  of  marriage. 

"  I  don't  want  to  be  hard  on  a  girl  who  is,  after  all,  very 
young,"  said  Lady  Isabel.  "  And,  of  course,  her  father 
doesn't  look  after  her.  She  is  allowed  to  go  to  restaurants 
with  him  and  every  sort  of  thing.  .  .  .  It's  not  the  girl's 
fault  exactly,  though  I  don't  like  the  way  she  dresses,  and 
a  wreath  of  artificial  flowers,  or  whatever  it  is  she  wears 

[lOO] 


GOLDSTEIN   A  N  0\:^  V  B'^P  N-J/Elu 


in  her  hair,  is  thoroughly  bad  form.  But  one  can't  be  too 
particular,  Alex,  and  I  do  want  you  to  make  a  success  of 
things,  and  have  the  right  friends  and  not  the  wrong  ones." 

The  wistful  anxiety  in  her  mother's  voice,  no  less  than 
in  her  glance  at  her  daughter,  made  Alex  wonder  sensi- 
tively if,  perhaps,  she  were  secretly  somewhat  disappointed. 

Certainly  no  overwhelming  triumph  had  attended  Alex' 
social  career.  She  was  merely  the  newly-come-out  daugh- 
ter of  a  charming  and  popular  mother,  less  pretty  than 
many  of  the  season's  debutantes,  alternately  embarrassingly 
self-conscious,  or  else,  when  she  found  herself  at  her  ease, 
with  an  unbecomingly  dictatorial  manner.  She  had  been 
led  to  expect,  from  constant  veiled  references  to  the  sub- 
ject, that  as  soon  as  she  grew  up,  opportunity  would  be 
afforded  her  to  attain  the  goal  of  every  well-born  girl's 
destiny  —  that  of  matrimony.  Girls  who  became  engaged 
to  be  married  in  their  first  season  were  a  success,  those  who 
had  already  twice,  or  perhaps  thrice,  been  the  round  of  Lon- 
don gaiety  with  no  tangible  result  of  the  sort,  had  almost 
invariably  to  give  way  to  a  younger  sister,  in  order  that  she, 
in  her  turn,  might  have  "  the  chances  "  of  which  they  had 
failed  to  profit. 

Of  young  women  of  twenty-two  or  twenty-three  years 
old,  still  going  yearly  through  the  season,  Lady  Isabel  merely 
said  matter-of-factly: 

"  What  a  pity !  " 

For  the  first  time,  a  disquieting  twinge  seized  Alex,  lest 
the  same  words  should  apply  to  her.  No  one  had  shown 
her  the  faintest  inclination  to  ask  her  in  marriage,  or  even 
express  any  particular  admiration  for  her.  She  could  not 
imagine  any  of  the  men  whom  she  knew  falling  in  love  with 
her. 

At  balls  or  dinner-parties,  she  made  conversation  with  her 
partners.  They  never  grew  to  know  one  another  more  in- 
timately. Sometimes  she  had  heard  girls  talk  of  looking 
forward  to  some  forthcoming  entertainment  because  they 
knew  that  their  particular  friends  would  be  there. 

[lOl] 


CONSEQUENCES 


She  herself  did  not  care.  She  was  on  the  same  terms 
with  all  of  them  —  polite,  impersonal,  mutually  rather  bored 
and  boring. 

The  nearest  approach  to  intercourse  other  than  merely 
surface  that  she  attained  to,  was  with  Queenie's  most  openly 
declared  worshipper,  Maurice  Goldstein.  His  manner  to 
all  women  verged  upon  the  effusive,  and  Alex  was  secretly 
faintly  ashamed  of  feeling  slightly,  but  perceptibly,  flattered 
at  the  deference  which  he  showed  her,  and  even  at  his 
favourite  mannerism  of  gazing  straight  into  her  eyes  as 
he  shook  hands  with  her  on  meeting  or  parting. 

Although  Lady  Isabel  never  invited  him  to  Clevedon 
Square,  and  sometimes  spoke  of  him  as  "  that  dreadful 
young  Jew  who  seems  to  get  himself  asked  everywhere," 
she  did  not  forbid  Alex  to  dance  with  him,  and  he  was  the 
only  young  man  of  her  acquaintance  who  invariably  asked 
her  to  keep  a  second  dance  for  him  later  in  the  evening. 

She  felt  greatly  curious  as  to  his  sentiment  for  Queenie, 
partly  from  youth's  love  of  romance,  partly  from  a  desire 
to  find  out,  if  she  could,  both  the  cause  and  the  effect  of 
the  process  known  as  "  falling  in  love." 

If  she  knew  more  about  it,  she  felt  dimly,  perhaps  it  might 
happen  also  to  her. 

One  night,  towards  the  end  of  the  season,  at  the  last  big 
ball  she  was  to  attend  that  year,  Alex  was  taken  down  to 
supper  by  Maurice  Goldstein. 

She  was  surprised,  and  for  a  moment  flattered,  for 
Queenie  was  also  present,  although  she  had  apparently 
vouchsafed  him  neither  word  nor  look. 

Goldstein  gave  Alex  his  arm  and  conducted  her  cere- 
moniously downstairs  to  the  supper-room. 

It  was  late  in  the  evening,  only  four  or  five  couples,  or 
an  occasional  group  of  three  or  four,  lingered  at  the  small, 
round,  flower-decked  tables. 

"  Shall  we  come  here  ?  "  said  Goldstein  rather  morosely. 

He  selected  a  table  in  a  remote  corner,  and  as  she  took 
her  seat,  Alex  perceived  that  they  were  within  sight  of  the 

[102] 


GOLDSTEIN    AND    QUEENIE 

alcove  where  sat  Queenie  Torrance  with  her  partner,  a 
young  Danish  diplomat  whom  Alex  knew  only  by  sight. 

"  Who  is  that  ?  "  she  asked  almost  involuntarily,  as  Gold- 
stein's lowering  gaze  followed  the  direction  of  her  own. 

The  young  man  beside  her  needed  no  more  to  make  him 
launch  out  into  emphatic  speech. 

Alex  was  half  frightened,  as  she  watched  the  glow  in  his 
eyes  and  the  rapid  gesticulations  of  his  hands,  as  though 
emotion  had  startled  him  into  a  display  of  the  racial  char- 
acteristics that  he  habitually  concealed  so  carefully. 

He  told  her  crudely  that  he  adored  Queenie,  and  that  it 
drove  him  nearly  mad  to  see  her  in  the  company  of  other 
men. 

"  But  why  don't  you  ask  her  to  marry  you?  "  exclaimed 
Alex  innocently. 

Goldstein  stared  at  her. 

"  I  have  asked  her  fourteen  times,"  he  said  at  last  with 
a  slight  gasp. 

"  Fourteen  times !  "    Alex  was  astounded. 

According  to  her  preconceived  notions  a  proposal  was 
carefully  led  up  to,  uttered  at  some  propitious  moment, 
preferably  by  moonlight,  and  then  and  there  either  definitely 
accepted  or  rejected. 

**  But  I  shouldn't  have  thought  you'd  even  seen  her  four- 
teen times,"  she  remarked  naively. 

"  I  see  her  every  day,"  Goldstein  said  gloomily.  "  It's 
playing  the  deuce  with  my  business.  You  won't  give  me 
away,  I  know  —  you're  her  friend,  aren't  you?  —  and  peo- 
ple are  so  stupid  and  conventional,  they  might  talk." 

Alex  remembered  Lady  Isabel.  Was  this  what  she  had 
meant  ? 

"  I  can  always  manage  to  see  her.  I  know  her  move- 
ments, and  when  I  can  meet  her,  and  when  I  may  take  her 
out  to  lunch  or  tea  —  some  quiet  place,  of  course." 

Alex  was  puzzled. 

"  But  are  you  engaged  ?  " 

"  Yes,  a  thousand  times !  "  he  answered  in  low,  vehement 

[103] 


CONSEQUENCES 


tones,  and  then  appeared  to  recollect  himself.  "  She  has 
never  said  no,  although  I  can't  induce  her  to  say  yes,"  he 
admitted ;  "  and  I  have  to  see  her  surrounded  and  admired 
everywhere  she  goes,  and  have  no  hold  on  her  whatever. 
If  she  would  only  marry  me !  "  he  made  a  gesture  of  rather 
theatrical  despair,  indicating  the  far  corner  where  the  young 
Dane  still  sat,  oblivious  of  everything  but  Queenie,  droop- 
ing over  the  small  round  table  that  separated  them. 

*'  Cad !  he's  going  to  smoke,"  Goldstein  muttered  furiously 
below  his  breath. 

The  room  had  emptied,  and  Alex  saw  Queenie  deliberately 
glance  over  her  shoulder,  as  though  to  make  sure  of  being 
unobserved.  Her  eyes  moved  unseeingly  across  Alex  and 
Maurice  Goldstein.  The  rest  of  the  room  was  empty. 
With  a  little  half-shrug  of  her  white  shoulders  she  delicately 
took  a  cigarette  from  the  case  that  the  diplomat  vv^as  eagerly 
proffering. 

It  was  the  first  time  that  Alex  had  seen  a  woman  with  a 
cigarette  between  her  lips.  She  felt  herself  colouring  hotly, 
as  she  watched,  with  involuntary  fascination,  Queenie's  part- 
ner carefully  lighting  the  cigarette  for  her,  his  hand  very 
close  to  her  face. 

She  dared  not  look  at  Goldstein.  The  cheap  vulgarity 
of  Queenie's  display  of  modern  freedom  shocked  her  sin- 
cerely, nor  could  even  her  inexperience  blind  her  to  the 
underlying  motive  governing  Queenie's  every  gesture. 

She  fumbled  hastily  for  her  fan  and  gloves. 

"  Shall  we  come  upstairs  again  ?  "  she  asked  in  a  stifled 
voice. 

Goldstein  rose  without  a  word. 

Alex,  venturing  to  cast  one  glance  at  him,  saw  that  his 
face  had  grown  white. 

As  he  took  her  back  to  Lady  Isabel,  he  spoke  in  a  quick, 
low,  dramatic  voice  between  clenched  teeth : 

"You  saw?  She  knows  she  is  driving  me  frantic;  but 
after  this  —  it's  all  over." 

Alex  was  frightened  and  yet  exultant  at  playing  even  a 

[104] 


GOLDSTEIN   AND    QUEENIE 

secondary  role  in  what  seemed  to  her  to  be  a  drama  of 
reality. 

An  hour  later,  sitting,  for  the  time  being  partnerless,  be- 
side her  mother,  she  saw  Queenie  re-enter  the  ballroom, 
followed  by  the  Dane. 

Queenie's  widely-set  eyes  were  throwing  a  glance,  inno- 
cent, appealing,  the  length  of  the  long  room.  At  once  her 
eyelids  dropped  again.  But  in  that  instant  Maurice  Gold- 
stein had  left  the  wall  against  which  he  had  been  leaning, 
listless  and  sulky-looking,  and  was  making  his  way  through 
the  lessening  crowd. 

Alex,  wondering,  saw  him  reach  the  side  of  the  tall, 
white-clad  figure,  and  claim  her  from  the  young  diplomat. 

He  gravely  offered  Queenie  his  arm,  and  Alex  saw  them 
no  more  that  night.  She  herself  drove  home  to  Clevedon 
Square  beside  Lady  Isabel  with  her  mind  in  a  tumult. 

She  felt  that  for  the  first  time  she  had  seen  love  at 
close  quarters,  and  although  a  faint  but  bitter  regret  that 
the  experience  had  not  been  a  personal  one  underlay  all  her 
sensations,  she  was  full  of  excitement. 

"  No  more  late  nights  after  this  week,"  said  Lady  Isabel, 
her  voice  sleepy.  "  A  rest  will  do  you  good,  Alex.  You 
are  losing  your  freshness." 

Alex  scarcely  listened.  She  stood  impatiently  while  the 
weary  maid,  whose  duty  it  was  to  sit  up  for  her  mistresses 
return,  undid  the  complicated  fastenings  of  her  frock,  and 
took  the  pins  out  of  her  hair. 

"  I'll  brush  it  myself,"  said  Alex  hastily.  "  Good-night, 
mother." 

*' Good-night ;  don't  come  down  till  lunch-time,  Alex  — 
we  are  not  doing  anything." 

Alex  carried  her  ball  dress  carefully  over  her  arm  and 
went  up  one  more  flight  of  stairs  to  her  own  room,  wrapped 
in  her  pink  dressing-gown,  and  with  her  hair  loose  on  her 
shoulders. 

Sitting  on  the  edge  of  her  bed  and  gazing  at  her  own 
reflection  in  the  big,  swinging  mirror,  she  made  personal 

[105] 


CONSEQUENCES 


application  of  the  small  fragment  of  human  drama  that 
she  had  just  witnessed. 

What  man  would  speak  and  think  of  her  as  Maurice 
Goldstein  spoke  and  thought  of  Queenie  Torrance? 

When  would  any  man's  ardent  glance  answer  hers;  any 
man  make  his  way  to  her  through  a  crowd  in  response  to 
the  silent  summons  of  her  eyes? 

She  fell  into  one  of  the  idle,  romantic  dreams  evoked  by 
a  highly-strung  imagination,  untempered  by  any  light  of  ex- 
perience. But  the  hero  of  the  dream  was  a  nebulous,  shad- 
owy figure  of  fiction.  No  man  of  flesh  and  blood  held  any 
place  in  the  slender  fabric  of  her  fancies. 

It  occurred  to  her,  more  with  a  sense  of  disconcertment 
than  of  that  panic  which  was  to  come  later,  that  she  did 
not  possess  the  power  of  drawing  any  reality  from  her 
communion  with  others,  and  that  no  intimacy  other  than  one 
of  the  surface  had  as  yet  ever  resulted  from  any  inter- 
course of  hers  with  her  fellow-creatures.  Her  nearest  ap- 
proach to  reality  had  been  that  one-sided,  irrational  adora- 
tion of  her  schooldays  for  Queenie  Torrance,  that  had  met 
with  no  return,  and  with  so  much  and  such  universal  con- 
demnation. 

Alex  did  not  doubt  that  the  condemnation  was  justified. 
The  impression  left  upon  her  adolescent  mind  remained 
ineradicable:  it  was  wrong  to  attach  so  much  importance 
to  loving;  it  was  different,  in  some  mysterious,  culpable  way, 
to  feel  as  she  did  —  that  nothing  mattered  except  the  people 
one  loved,  that  nothing  was  so  much  worth  while  as  the 
affection  and  understanding  which  one  knew  so  well,  from 
oneself,  must  exist,  and  for  the  bestowal  of  which  on  one's 
own  lonely,  ardent  spirit  one  prayed  so  passionately;  and 
all  these  desires,  being  wrong  and  unlike  other  people,  must 
at  all  costs  be  concealed  and  denied.  Thus  Alex,  placing 
the  perverted  and  yet  unescapable  interpretation  of  her 
disconsolate  youth  upon  such  experience  of  life  as  had 
been  vouchsafed  to  her. 

Still  sitting  on  the  side  of  the  bed  and  facing  the  looking- 

[io6] 


GOLDSTEIN   AND    QUEENIE 

glass,  she  sought  in  her  own  reflection  for  traces  of  the 
spell  wielded  by  Queenie  Torrance.  She  had  not  yet  out- 
grown the  belief  that  beauty  and  the  power  to  attract 
should  be  synonymous. 

Was  she  as  pretty  as  Queenie? 

Her  colour  was  bright  and  pure,  and  her  hazel  eyes  re- 
flected the  brown  lights  gleaming  in  her  soft,  tumbled  hair, 
that  fell  no  lower  than  her  shoulders.  She  reflected  dis- 
consolately on  the  undue  prominence  of  the  two,  white 
front  teeth  that  the  plate  which  had  tormented  her  child- 
hood had  just  failed  to  render  level  with  the  others. 

Straight  brows  added  to  the  regularity  of  her  features, 
only  the  corners  of  her  mouth  habitually  drooping  very 
slightly.  The  angularity  which  Lady  Isabel  so  regretted 
was  sharply  manifested  in  the  exposed  collar-bones  just 
above  the  open  dressing-gown,  and  in  the  childishly  thin 
arms  and  wrists.  With  an  odd,  detached  shrewdness,  she 
appraised  the  prominent  attributes  of  her  own  appearance, 
its  ungraceful  immaturity. 

As  she  got  slowly  into  bed,  she  passed  other,  moral,  attri- 
butes, in  fleeting  review. 

Alex  believed  that  one  might  be  loved  for  one's  goodness, 
if  not  for  one's  beauty.  But  she  could  not  suppose  herself 
to  be  good.  The  tradition  of  the  nursery  black  sheep  still 
clung  to  her. 

Should  love  come  to  her,  she  had  nothing  but  the  force  of 
the  answer  within  her  to  bring  to  it,  and  that  force  she  had 
been  taught  to  think  of  in  the  light  of  an  affliction  to  be 
overcome. 

Yet  Alex  Clare  fell  asleep  smiling  a  little,  nursing  the 
foolish,  romantic  fancies  that  usurped  the  place  of  realities, 
and  unaware  that  the  temperament  which  craves  to  give  all, 
is  often  that  of  which  least  will  ever  be  asked. 


[107] 


IX 

Scotland 

QUEENIE'S  engagement  to  young  Goldstein  was  for- 
mally announced  at  the  beginning  of  the  year  fol- 
lowing that  one  in  which  Alex  made  her  debut. 

''  A  most  suitable  match,  I  should  imagine,"  was  Lady 
Isabel's  emphasized  comment. 

Alex  was  romantically  delighted,  and  hoped  for  an  oppor- 
tunity of  obtaining  first-hand  impressions. 

Queenie,  however,  sent  only  the  most  conventional  of 
notes  in  reply  to  Alex'  eagerly  written  congratulation,  and 
Alex  had  only  a  glimpse  of  her  at  the  crowded  wedding, 
exquisitely  pale  and  pure  under  her  veil,  with  Goldstein,  his 
swarthy  face  radiant  and  illuminated,  at  her  side. 

Remembering  the  night  when  the  young  Jew  had  spoken 
to  her  freely  of  his  adoration  for  her  friend,  Alex,  with 
awkward  fervour,  addressed  a  few  words  of  ardent  con- 
gratulation to  him. 

He  showed  his  remarkably  white  teeth  in  a  quick  smile, 
brilliant  with  triumph  and  happiness,  and  wrung  her  hand 
warmly ;  but  alas !  his  eyes  failed  to  answer  her  gaze,  and  it 
was  obvious  that  no  deeper  issues  between  them  held  any 
place  in  his  recollections. 

Alex  went  away  vaguely  disappointed  and  humiliated. 

She,  who  so  longed  for  a  first  place,  seemed  doomed  to 
relegation  to  the  ranks.  Even  at  home  there  was  no  longer 
any  excitement  such  as  that  which  had  surrounded  her 
launch  into  the  great  world,  and  Lady  Isabel  occasionally 
betrayed  a  hint  of  disappointment  that  no  family  council 
had  as  yet  been  required  on  the  subject  of  Alex'  future, 
such  as  those  which  had  punctuated  the  epoch  of  her  own 
brief  girlhood. 

[io8] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


Indeed  it  was  rather  Barbara  who  was  the  centre  of 
attention. 

She  still  suffered  from  backache  and  general  languor, 
consequent  upon  over-rapid  growth  during  the  year  she  had 
spent  on  the  flat  of  her  back.  Old  Nurse  pitied  and  was 
much  inclined  to  spoil  her,  dosed  her  religiously  with  a  glass 
of  port  at  eleven  o'clock  every  morning,  and  supported  her 
whining  assertions  that  lessons  with  Mademoiselle  made  her 
ill. 

"  I  want  to  go  to  school,"  said  Barbara  inconsistently. 
"  Alex  went  to  school,  so  why  shouldn't  I  ?  " 

"  Darlin'  child,  you  know  very  well  that  your  father  won't 
hear  of  girls  goin'  to  school.  A  convent  is  quite  different  — 
but  I  certainly  shan't  send  you  to  that  sort  of  establishment, 
after  the  trick  they  played  me  with  Alex,  sendin'  her  back 
round-shouldered,  and  with  her  hands  all  chapped  and  red 
and  covered  with  chilblains.  Never  again,"  said  Lady 
Isabel. 

Barbara  sulked. 

She  sulked  so  long  and  so  effectively  that  the  unfortunate 
Mademoiselle  came  of  her  own  accord  to  implore  that  Bar- 
bara might  be  released  from  the  schoolroom.  She  was  not 
learning  anything,  and  her  example  was  making  little  Pamela 
naughty  and  defiant. 

"  What  a  plague  children  are ! "  Lady  Isabel  said  help- 
lessly. 

She  consulted  her  friends,  drawing  a  plaintively  humor- 
ous picture  of  the  recalcitrant  young  person,  which,  to  the 
annoyance  of  Alex,  caused  a  certain  amount  of  amused 
sympathy  to  be  expressed  in  Barbara's  favour. 

At  last  some  one  suggested  that  she  should  be  sent  abroad. 
Not  to  a  school  or  a  convent,  certainly  not  —  every  one  was 
unanimous  on  that  point  excepting  one  or  two  ultra-Catholic 
old  aunts  of  Sir  Francis  —  but  to  a  charming  Marquise,  liv- 
ing at  Neuilly,  and  desirous  of  companionship  for  her  only 
child,  a  girl  of  about  the  same  age  as  Barbara. 

"  She  will  learn  to  speak  French  like  a  native,  and  have 

[109] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


dancing  and  singing  lessons  with  the  Helene  child,  and  go 
to  all  the  art  galleries  and  places  ...  That  girl  of  the 
Duchess  went  there  to  be  finished  just  before  she  came  out, 
and  loved  it,  and  she  came  back  so  much  improved  —  know- 
ing how  to  put  on  her  clothes,  you  know  .  .  .  just  the  sort 
of  thing  that  makes  all  the  difference." 

So  spoke  Lady  Isabel's  enthusiastic  friends. 

Barbara  was  not  consulted,  but  when  the  plans  had 
been  finally  settled  upon  and  everything  arranged,  she  was 
told,  in  accordance  with  the  usage  of  her  day,  that  as  she 
was  so  discontented  and  troublesome  at  home,  her  parents 
felt  obliged,  for  the  sake  of  the  younger  children,  to  send 
her  away  from  them.  Barbara,  following  her  wont,  said 
nothing  at  all,  and  did  not  relax  her  pouting  expression,  but 
once  back  in  the  schoolroom  again,  she  jumped  up  and 
down  on  the  sofa  in  a  manner  denoting  extravagant  glee. 

"  I  knew  they'd  have  to  give  in,"  she  chanted.  "  I  knew 
they  would,  I  knew  they  would." 

For  a  long  while  she  teased  Archie  and  Pamela  by  refus- 
ing to  give  them  any  explanation,  and  at  the  same  time 
exciting  their  curiosity  by  her  continual  reference  to  an 
approaching  triumphant  emancipation  for  her,  until  Cedric, 
home  for  the  Easter  holidays,  and  expert  in  the  administra- 
tions of  schoolboy  tortures,  ruthlessly  made  use  of  them 
to  reduce  his  sister  to  her  proper  position  of  inferiority. 

Barbara  was  sent  to  Neuilly  early  in  April,  and  Alex  pro- 
ceeded to  enter  upon  the  second  phase  of  her  social  career. 

It  was  less  of  a  success  than  her  first  season  had  been. 

It  was  assumed  that  she  had  by  this  time  made  her  own 
friends,  and  her  mother's  contemporaries  accordingly  took 
less  pains  in  the  matter  of  introductions  on  her  behalf. 

If  it  be  true  that  nothing  succeeds  like  success,  it  is  truer 
still  that  nothing  fails  so  completely  as  a  failure. 

When  Alex  had  sat  out  four  or  five  dances  at  a  ball, 
partnerless,  her  conviction  of  her  own  social  degradation  was 
absolutely  overwhelming.  Her  surroundings  only  inter- 
ested her  as  a  background  to  her  own  personality,  and  as 

[no] 


SCO TLAND 


she  derived  no  pleasure,  but  only  disappointment  and  mor- 
tification, from  the  majority  of  the  functions  at  which  she 
was  present,  her  young,  expressive  face  unconsciously  ad- 
vertised both  her  vexation  and  the  cause  of  it. 

Her  youth  and  her  vanity  alike  were  in  rebellion  against 
the  truth,  which  she  more  than  half  divined,  that  she,  who 
so  longed  to  please  and  to  attract,  was  as  utterly  devoid  of 
that  magnetic  charm  possessed  by  other  girls  in  a  lesser, 
and  by  Queenie  Goldstein  in  supreme,  degree,  as  it  was 
possible  for  a  reasonably  pretty  and  healthy  young  girl  to 
be. 

Neither  her  health  nor  her  beauty  improved,  moreover. 

Late  hours,  in  her  case,  uncounteracted  by  the  vivid 
sparkle  of  enjoyment,  drew  unbecoming  dark  circles  be- 
neath her  eyes,  and  the  physical  fatigue  always  engendered 
in  her  by  boredom  was  most  unmistakably  manifested  in 
her  slouching  shoulders  and  mournful  pallor. 

"  Alex  a  son  air  bete  aujourd'hui." 

Memory  mercilessly  recalled  to  her  the  old  gibe  of  her 
schoolmates  sometimes,  as  she  felt,  against  her  own  will, 
her  features  stiffening  into  the  stupid  "  tragedy-queen  "  look 
which  had  met  with  the  mocking  of  her  companions. 

"  Do  try  and  cheer  up,  darlin',"  Lady  Isabel  sometimes 
said,  with  more  impatience  than  compassion  in  her  voice,  as 
she  glanced  at  her  daughter;  and  the  implication  that  her 
looks  were  betraying  her  feelings  made  Alex  more  wretched 
and  self-conscious  than  ever. 

She  often  saw  Queenie  Goldstein,  as  much  surrounded  as 
in  the  days  before  her  marriage,  and  her  excessive  decol- 
letage  now  enhanced  by  the  jewels  showered  upon  her  by 
her  husband. 

Queenie  once  invited  her  to  a  dinner-party  at  her  little 
house  in  Curzon  Street,  but  Alex  knew  that  she  would  not 
be  allowed  to  go,  and  showed  the  invitation  with  great 
trepidation  to  her  mother. 

"  Very  impertinent  of  her !  Why,  she's  never  been  intro- 
duced to  me.     I  shouldn't  dream  of  allowin'  any  daughter 

[III] 


CONSEQUENCES 


of  mine  to  go  and  dine  with  people  whom  I  didn't  know 
personally,  even  if  they  were  absolutely  all  right." 

Lady  Isabel,  so  easy-going  and  tepidly  affectionate  to- 
wards her  children,  was  adamant  where  her  social  creed  was 
concerned. 

*'  In  any  case,  Alex,  I've  told  you  before  that  I  don't 
want  you  to  go  on  with  the  acquaintance.  That  Goldstein 
woman  is  gettin'  herself  talked  about,  unless  I'm  very  much 
mistaken." 

Again  that  mysterious  accusation!  Alex  said  no  more, 
but  wondered  naively  how  the  phase  that  had  been  used 
in  connection  with  Queenie  Torrance  could  still  be  applicable 
to  Maurice  Goldstein's  wife. 

Surely  married  women  did  not  flirt?  The  term,  to  Alex, 
symbolized  she  knew  not  what  of  offensive  coquetry,  and 
of  general  "  bad  form." 

This  belief  had  been  inculcated  into  her  as  a  precept  but, 
nevertheless,  she  could  not  divest  herself  of  a  secret  suspi- 
cion that,  although  Lady  Isabel  might  have  rebuked,  she 
would  not  have  been  altogether  averse  from  a  lapse  or 
two  in  that  direction  on  the  part  of  her  daughter. 

But  Alex  embarked  upon  no  flirtation.  The  men  who 
danced  with  her  or  took  her  in  to  dinner  never  seemed 
desirous  of  talking  personalities.  They  made  perfunctory 
remarks  about  the  decorations  of  the  tables,  the  quality  of 
the  floor  and  the  music,  and  the  revival  of  the  Gilbert  and 
Sullivan  operas. 

The  sense  that  the  intercourse  between  them  must  be 
sustained  by  conversation  never  left  her  for  an  instant. 

There  had  been  one  occasion  when  she  had  actually  for- 
gotten to  think  of  herself  and  of  the  effect  she  might  be 
producing,  and  had  joined  with  real  interest  in  a  discussion 
about  books  with  a  man  a  great  deal  older  than  herself, 
who  happened  to  be  placed  next  to  her  at  a  big  dinner  party. 
Lady  Isabel,  opposite,  had  glanced  once  or  twice  at  her 
daughter's  unusually  animated  expression. 

"  You  seemed  to  be  gettin'  on  very  well  with  the  man  on 

[112] 


SCOTLAND 


your  other  side  —  not  the  one  who  took  you  down,  but  the 
oldish  one,"  she  said  afterwards  in  a  pleased  voice. 

"  I  never  found  out  his  name,"  said  Alex.  "  He  told  me 
he  wrote  books.  It  was  so  interesting;  we  were  talking 
about  poetry  a  lot  of  the  time." 

Her  mother's  face  lost  something  of  its  smile.  "  Oh,  my 
darling !  "  she  exclaimed  in  sudden  flattened  tones,  "  don't 
go  and  get  a  reputation  for  being  clever,  whatever  you  do. 
People  do  dislike  that  sort  of  thing  so  much  in  a  girl ! " 

Alex,  her  solitary  triumph  killed,  knew  that  there  was  yet 
another  item  to  be  added  to  that  invisible  score  of  reasons 
for  which  one  was  loved  or  disliked  by  one's  fellow-crea- 
tures. 

Without  formulating  the  conviction  to  herself,  she  be- 
lieved implicitly  that  in  the  careful  simulation  of  those  at- 
tributes which  she  had  been  told  would  provoke  admiration 
or  affection,  lay  her  only  chance  of  obtaining  something 
of  that  which  she  craved. 

Dismayed,  wearied,  and  uncheered  by  success,  she  con- 
tinued to  act  out  her  little  feeble  comedies. 

At  the  end  of  her  second  season  she  felt  very  old,  and 
very  much  disillusioned.  This  was  not  real  life  as  she  had 
thought  to  find  it  on  leaving  schooldays  behind  her. 

There  must  be  something  beyond  —  some  happy  reality 
that  should  reveal  the  wherefore  of  all  existence,  but  Alex 
knew  not  where  to  find  it. 

Morbidity  was  a  word  which  had  no  place  in  the  vocabu- 
lary of  her  surroundings,  but  Lady  Isabel  said  to  her  rather 
plaintively,  "  You  must  try  and  look  more  cheerful,  Alex, 
dear,  when  I  take  you  about.  Your  father  is  quite  vexed 
when  he  sees  such  a  gloomy  face.  You  enjoy  things,  don't 
you?" 

And  Alex,  in  her  complicated  disappointment  at  disap- 
pointing her  mother  and  father,  answered  hastily  in  the 
affirmative. 

In  the  autumn,  in  Scotland,  she  met  Noel  Cardew  again. 

They  were  staying  at  the  same  house.     Alex  felt  child- 

[113] 


CON  SEQ UENCES 


ishly  proud  of  saying,  when  her  hostess  brought  the  young 
man  to  her  side,  with  a  word  of  introduction : 

"  Oh,  but  we've  met  before !     I  know  him  quite  well." 

She  wished  that  she  had  spoken  less  emphatically,  at  the 
sight  of  Noel's  politely  non-committal  smile.  It  was  evident 
that  he  had  not  the  faintest  recollection  of  the  meeting  at 
his  mother's  house  in  Devonshire.  She  reminded  him  of  it 
rather  shyly. 

"  Oh,  yes,  of  course.  You  were  at  school  with  my  young 
cousins.  I  remember  you  coming  over  to  see  us  quite  well, 
with  your  brothers.  We  all  played  hunt  the  slipper  or 
something,  didn't  we  ?  " 

"  Hide-and-seek,"  said  Alex  literally.  She  wondered  why 
encounters  which  remained  quite  vividly  in  her  own  mem- 
ory should  always  appear  to  present  themselves  so  indis- 
tinctly and  trivially  to  other  people. 

"  I  haven't  heard  from  your  cousins  for  a  long  while. 
Are  they  in  America  ?  " 

"  Diana  is  in  India,  of  course.  She  married,  you  know 
—  a  fellow  in  the  Indian  Police." 

"  I  remember,"  said  Alex,  determined  to  ignore  the  tiny 
prick  of  jealousy  that  now  habitually  assailed  her  almost 
every  time  that  she  heard  of  the  marriage  of  another  girl. 

"  Are  the  other  two  married  ?  "  she  made  resolute  inquiry. 

"  Oh,  no.  Why,  Marie  isn't  properly  grown-up  yet. 
They  are  both  in  America.  I've  some  idea  of  going  over 
to  New  York  myself  next  year,  and  I  suppose  I  shall  stay 
with  their  people.     My  uncle's  at  the  Embassy,  you  know." 

"  It  would  be  splendid  to  see  New  York,"  said  Alex,  with 
the  old  imitation  of  enthusiasm. 

"  I  should  like  the  journey  as  well,"  young  Cardew  re- 
marked. *'  Board  ship  is  an  awfully  good  way  of  studying 
human  nature,  I  fancy,  and  I'm  rather  keen  on  that  sort 
of  thing.  In  fact,  I've  a  mad  idea  of  perhaps  writing  a 
book  one  of  these  days,  probably  in  the  form  of  a  novel, 
because  it's  only  by  gilding  the  pill  that  you  can  get  the 
great  B.P.  to  swallow  it  —  but  it'll   really  be  a  kind  of 

[114] 


SCO TLAND 


philosophy  of  life,  you  know,  with  a  good  deal  about  the 
different  sides  of  human  nature.  It  may  sound  rather 
ambitious,  perhaps,  but  I  believe  it  could  be  done." 

Alex  assented  eagerly,  and  wondered  what  the  initials 
that  he  had  used — "the  great  B.P." — represented.  She 
glanced  at  him  sideways. 

He  was  even  better-looking  than  he  had  been  as  a  boy, 
his  sunburn  of  a  deeper  tan,  and  the  still  noticeable  cast  in 
one  eye  adding  a  certain  character  to  the  straightness  of  his 
features.  He  had  grown  a  little,  fair  moustache,  contrast- 
ing pleasantly  with  his  light  brown  eyes.  The  boyish  imma- 
turity of  the  loosely  knit  figure  was  obscured  to  her  eyes 
by  the  excellence  of  his  carriage  and  his  five  foot  eleven 
inches  of  height. 

She  was  inwardly  almost  incredulously  pleased  when  he 
chose  the  place  next  to  hers  at  breakfast  on  the  following 
morning,  and  asked  whether  she  was  going  out  to  join  the 
guns  at  lunch  on  the  moors. 

"  I  think  so,"  said  Alex.  She  would  have  liked  to  say, 
"  I  hope  so,"  but  something  within  her  attached  such  an 
exaggerated  importance  to  the  words  that  she  found  her- 
self unable  to  utter  them. 

"  Well,"  said  Noel,  **  I  shall  look  out  for  you,  so  mind 
you  come." 

Alex's  gratification  was  transparently  evident.  She  was 
the  only  girl  of  the  party,  which  was  a  small  one ;  and  Lady 
Isabel,  declaring  herself  obliged  to  write  letters,  sent  her  out 
at  lunch-time  under  the  care  of  her  hostess. 

They  lunched  on  the  moors  with  the  five  men,  two  of 
whom  had  only  come  over  for  the  day. 

Noel  Cardew  at  once  established  himself  at  Alex'  side 
and  began  to  expatiate  upon  the  day's  sport.  He  talked  a 
great  deal,  and  was  as  full  of  theories  as  in  their  school- 
room days,  and  Alex,  on  her  side,  Hstened  with  the  same 
intense  hope  that  her  sympathy  might  continue  to  retain 
him  beside  her. 

She  answered  him  with  eager  monosyllables  and  ejacula- 

[115] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


tions  expressive  of  interest.  Without  analysing  her  own 
motives,  it  seemed  to  her  to  be  so  important  that  Noel  Car- 
dew  should  continue  to  address  his  attention  exclusively  to 
her,  that  she  was  content  entirely  to  sink  her  own  individ- 
uality into  that  of  a  sympathetic  listener. 

When  she  dressed  for  dinner  that  evening  and  looked  at 
herself  in  the  big  mirror,  it  seemed  to  her  that  for  the  first 
time  her  own  appearance  was  entirely  satisfactory.  She 
felt  self-confident  and  happy,  and  after  dinner,  when  the 
elders  of  the  party  sat  down  to  play  cards,  she  declared  boldly 
that  she  wanted  to  look  at  the  garden  by  moonlight. 

"  Rather,"  said  Noel  Cardew. 

They  went  out  together  through  the  open  French  win- 
dow. 

Alex  held  up  her  long-tailed  white  satin  with  one  hand, 
and  walked  up  and  down  with  him  under  the  glowing  red 
globe  of  the  full  moon.  Noel  talked  about  his  book,  taking 
her  interest  for  granted  in  a  manner  that  flattered  and  de- 
lighted her. 

"  I  think  psychology  is  simply  the  most  absorbing  thing 
in  the  world,"  he  declared  earnestly.  "  I  hope  you  don't 
fight  shy  of  long  words,  do  you  ?  " 

Alex  uttered  a  breathless  disclaimer. 

"  Tm  glad.  So  many  people  seem  to  think  that  if  any  one 
says  anything  in  words  of  more  than  two  syllables  it's 
affectation.  Oxford  and  that  sort  of  thing.  But,  of  course, 
you're  not  like  that,  are  you  ?  " 

He  did  not  wait  for  an  answer  this  time,  but  went  on 
talking  very  eagerly  about  the  scheme  that  he  entertained 
for  obtaining  material  for  his  book. 

"  It  might  revolutionize  the  whole  standard  of  moral 
values  in  the  country,"  he  said  very  simply.  "  You  know, 
just  put  things  in  a  light  that  hasn't  struck  home  in  Eng- 
land yet  at  all.  Of  course,  on  the  continent  they're  far 
more  advanced  than  we  are,  on  those  sort  of  points.  That's 
why  I  want  to  travel,  before  I  start  serious  work.  Of 
course,  I've  got  a  mass  of  notes  already.     Just  ideas,  that 

[ii6] 


SCO TLAND 


have  struck  me  as  I  go  along.  I'm  afraid  I'm  fearfully 
observant,  and  I  generally  size  up  the  people  I  meet,  and 
then  make  notes  about  them  —  or  else  simply  dismiss  them 
from  my  mind  altogether.  My  idea  is  rather  to  classify 
human  nature  into  various  types,  so  that  the  book  can  be 
divided  up  under  different  headings,  and  then  have  a  sort 
of  general  summing  up  at  the  end.  Of  course,  that's  only  a 
rough  sketch  of  the  whole  plan,  but  you  see  what  I  mean  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  do,"  said  Alex  with  conviction.  "  I've  always, 
all  my  life,  thought  that  people  mattered  much  more  than 
anything  else,  only  I've  never  found  anybody  else  who  felt 
like  that  too." 

"  It's  rather  interesting  to  look  at  things  the  same  way, 
don't  you  think  ?  "  Noel  enquired. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  Alex  answered  with  shy  fervour,  her  heart 
beating  very  fast. 

She  was  only  anxious  to  prolong  the  tete-a-tete,  and  had 
no  idea  of  suggesting  a  return  to  the  drawing-room,  in  spite 
of  the  damage  that  she  subconsciously  felt  the  damp  ground 
to  be  doing  to  her  satin  slippers.  But  presently  Lady  Isabel 
called  to  her  from  the  window,  and  she  came  into  the 
lighted  room,  conscious  both  of  her  own  glowing  face  and 
of  a  certain  kindly,  interested  look  bent  upon  her  by  her 
seniors. 


[117] 


X 

Noel 

IN  the  ensuing  days,  Alex  met  that  look  very  often  —  a 
look  of  pleased,  speculative  approval,  pregnant  with 
unspoken  meanings. 

Noel  sought  her  company  incessantly,  and  every  oppor- 
tunity was  given  them  of  spending  time  in  one  another's 
society.  For  five  glowing,  heather-surrounded  days  and 
five  breathless,  moonlit  evenings,  they  became  the  centre 
of  their  tiny  world. 

Then  Lady  Isabel  said  one  night  to  her  daughter : 

"You've  enjoyed  this  visit,  haven't  you,  darlin'?  I'm 
sorry  we're  movin'  on." 

'*  Oh,"  said  Alex  faintly,  "  are  we  really  leaving  tomor- 
row?" 

"  Tomorrow  morning,  by  the  early  train,"  her  mother 
assented  cheerfully. 

The  true  instinct  of  the  feeble,  to  clutch  at  an  unripe 
prize  lest  it  be  taken  from  them,  made  Alex  wonder  des- 
perately if  she  could  not  postpone  her  departure. 

But  she  dared  not  make  any  such  suggestion,  and  Lady 
Isabel,  looking  at  her  dismayed  face,  laughed  a  little  as 
though  at  the  unreason  of  a  child.  Alex  blushed  with 
shame  as  she  thought  that  her  mother  might  have  guessed 
what  was  in  her  mind.  That  evening,  however.  Lady  Isabel 
came  into  her  room  as  she  was  dressing  for  dinner. 

"  I  thought  you'd  like  to  put  this  over  your  shoulders, 
Alex,'*  she  said  negligently.  "  It  will  improve  that  cream- 
coloured  frock  of  yours." 

It  was  a  painted  scarf  that  she  held  out,  and  she  stood 
gazing  critically  while  the  maid  laid  it  across  Alex'  shoul- 
ders. 

"  You  look  so  nice,  darling  child.     Are  you  ready  ?  " 

[u8] 


NOEL 


"  Yes,  mother." 

They  went  downstairs  together. 

Alex  was  acutely  conscious  of  a  certain  maternal  pride 
and  tenderness,  such  as  she  had  not  experienced  from  Lady 
Isabel  since  the  first  days  of  her  return  from  Liege,  when 
she  had  finally  left  school.  She  did  not  let  herself  speculate 
to  what  such  unusual  emotion  might  portend. 

But  at  the  sight  of  Noel  Cardew,  better-looking  than  ever 
in  evening  clothes,  a  chaotic  excitement  surged  up  within 
her  in  anticipation  of  their  last  evening  together. 

Almost  as  she  sat  down  beside  him  at  the  dinner-table,  she 
said  piteously,  "  I  wish  we  weren't  going  away  tomorrow." 

"You're  not  f' 

"  Oh,  yes.     Didn't  you  know?" 

"  I  hadn't  realized  it,"  said  Noel,  and  although  she  avoided 
looking  at  him,  she  noted  with  a  feeling  of  triumph  the  dis- 
may in  his  voice. 

"  Oh,  I  say !     What  a  shame.     Must  you  really  go  ?  " 

"  We're  going  to  pay  two  more  visits  and  then  leave  Scot- 
land altogether." 

"  I  shan't  stay  much  longer  myself,"  observed  Noel  non- 
chalantly. 

Alex  was  conscious  of  keeping  the  words  as  it  were  at 
the  back  of  her  mind,  with  the  implication  which  she  at- 
tached to  them,  while  the  conversation  at  the  small  table 
became  general. 

As  she  followed  her  hostess  and  Lady  Isabel  from  the 
room,  Noel,  holding  open  the  door,  said  to  her  in  a  rapid, 
anxious  tone,  very  low : 

**  You'll  come  out  into  the  garden  afterwards,  won't 
you?" 

An  enigmatic  "  perhaps  "  was  not  in  Alex'  vocabulary. 
She  gave  him  a  quick,  radiant  smile,  and  nodded  emphat- 
ically. 

It  never  occurred  to  her  eager  prodigality  that  she  ran 
any  risk  of  cheapening  the  favours  that  so  few  had  ever 
coveted. 

[119] 


CONSEQUENCES 


In  the  garden  she  moved  along  the  gravelled  walk  beside 
him,  actually  breathless  from  inward  excitement. 

"  There  was  heaps  more  I  wanted  to  say  to  you  about 
the  book,"  Noel  remarked  disconsolately.  "  I  shan't  have 
any  one  to  exchange  ideas  with  now.  They're  all  so  old  — 
and  besides,  I  don't  think  English  people  as  a  rule  care  much 
about  psychology  and  that  sort  of  thing.  They're  so  keen 
on  games.  So  am  I,  in  a  way,  but  I  must  say  it  seems  to 
me  that  the  study  of  human  nature  is  a  good  deal  more 
worth  one's  while." 

"  People  are  so  interesting,"  said  Alex.  She  was  per- 
fectly aware  of  the  futility  of  her  remark  as  she  made  it, 
but  in  some  undercurrent  of  her  consciousness  there  floated 
the  conviction  that  one  need  not  put  forth  any  great  powers 
of  originality  in  order  to  obtain  response  from  Noel  Car- 
dew. 

"  I  can  be  perfectly  natural  with  him  —  we  think  alike," 
She  defended  herself  against  her  own  unformulated  accusa- 
tion with  inexplicable  anger. 

"  I  think  they're  frightfully  interesting,"  said  Noel  with 
conviction.  "Of  course,  men  are  far  more  interesting  than 
women,  if  you  don't  mind  my  saying  so,  simply  from  the 
psychological  point  of  view.  I  hope  you  don't  think  I'm 
being  rude  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no." 

"  You  see,  women,  as  a  general  rule,  are  rather  shallow, 
though,  of  course,  there  are  a  great  many  exceptions.  But 
you  know  what  I  mean  —  as  a  rule  they're  rather  shallow. 
That's  what  I  feel  about  women,  they're  shallow." 

"  Perhaps  you're  right,"  said  Alex,  rather  discouraged. 
She  would  not  admit  to  herself  that  his  sweeping  assertion 
awoke  no  echo  whatever  within  her. 

To  her  immaturity,  the  essence  of  sympathy  lay  in  com- 
plete agreement,  and  abstract  questions  meant  nothing  to 
her  when  weighed  in  the  balance  against  her  desire  to 
establish,  to  her  own  satisfaction  at  least,  the  existence  of 
such  sympathy  between  herself  and  Noel  Cardew, 

[120] 


NOEL 


"  I've  got  another  mad  plan,"  said  Noel  slowly.  **  You'll 
think  I'm  always  getting  insane  ideas,  and  this  one  rather 
depends  on  you." 

"Oh,  what?" 

"  I  hope  you  won't  mind  my  suggesting  such  a  thing  — " 
He  paused  so  long  that  Alex'  imagination  had  time  for  a 
hundred  foolish,  ecstatic  promptings,  such  as  her  reason 
knew  could  not  be  forthcoming,  but  for  which  her  whole 
undisciplined  sense  of  romance  was  crying. 

"  Well,  look  here :  what  should  you  think  of  collaborating 
with  me  over  the  book?  I'm  sure  you  could  write  if  you 
tried,  and  anyway,  you  could  probably  give  me  sidelights 
on  the  feminine  part  of  it.  It  would  be  most  awfully  help- 
ful to  me  if  you  would." 

"  Oh,"  said  Alex  uncertainly.  She  was  invaded  by  un- 
reasoning disappointment.     "  But  how  could  we  do  it  ?  " 

"  Oh,  well,  notes,  you  know  —  just  keep  notes  of  any- 
thing that  struck  us  particularly,  and  then  put  it  in  to- 
gether later.  We  should  have  to  do  a  good  deal  of  it  by 
correspondence,  of  course  ...  I  say,  are  you  a  conven- 
tional person  ? " 

"  Not  in  the  least,"  said  Alex  hastily. 

"Fm  glad  of  that.  I'm  afraid  I'm  rather  desperately 
unconventional  myself.  Of  course,  in  a  way  it  might  be 
rather  unconventional,  you  and  me  corresponding  —  but 
would  that  matter  ?  " 

"  Not  to  me,"  said  Alex  resolutely. 

"  That's  splendid.  We  could  do  a  lot  that  way,  and  then 
I  hope,  of  course,  that  you'll  let  me  come  and  see  you  in 
London." 

"  Of  course,"  Alex  cried  eagerly.  "  I  don't  know  the 
exact  date  when  we  shall  be  back,  but  I  could  let  you  know. 
Have  you  got  the  address  ?  " 

"  Clevedon  Square  — " 

She  hastily  supplied  the  number  of  the  house. 

"  Oh,  that's  all  right.  I'm  sure  to  forget  it,"  said  Noel 
easily ;  "  but  I  shall  find  you  in  the  books,  I  suppose." 

[121] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  Yes,"  said  Alex,  feeling  suddenly  damped. 

She  herself  would  have  been  in  no  danger  of  forgetting 
the  number  of  a  house  wherein  dwelt  any  one  whom  she 
wished  to  see,  but  with  disastrous  and  quite  unconscious 
humility,  she  told  herself  that  it  was,  of  course,  not  to  be 
expected  that  any  one  else  should  go  to  lengths  equal  to 
her  own.  In  her  one-sided  experience,  Alex  had  always 
found  herself  to  be  unique. 

That  Noel  Cardew  was  not  in  despair  at  the  idea  of  her 
departure  was  evident.  But  he  repeated  several  times  that 
he  wished  she  were  not  going  so  soon,  and  even  asked 
whether  she  would  stay  on  if  invited  to  do  so. 

"  I'm  sure  they'd  all  love  you  to,"  he  assured  her. 
"  Then  Lady  Isabel  could  pay  the  other  visits  and  call  for 
you  on  her  way  hack." 

"  I'm  sure  I  shouldn't  be  allowed  to  stay  on  by  myself," 
said  Alex  dolefully. 

"  There  you  are !  Conventionality  again.  My  daugh- 
ters," said  Noel  instructively,  "  if  I  ever  have  any,  shall  be 
brought  up  quite  differently.  I've  made  up  my  mind  to 
that.  I  daresay  you'll  laugh  at  all  these  theories  of  mine, 
but  I've  always  been  keen  on  ideas,  if  you  remember." 

But  for  once  Noel  did  not  receive  the  habitual  ready  dis- 
claimer called  for  by  his  speech. 

His  easy  allusion  to  his  hypothetical  daughters  had  re- 
duced Alex  to  utter  silence. 

Afterwards,  alone  in  the  darkness  of  her  own  room,  she 
wondered  why  such  a  startling  sense  of  protest  had  revolted 
within  her  at  his  words,  but  her  mind  shied  away  instinc- 
tively from  the  question,  and  she  found  herself  unable  to 
pursue  it. 

The  next  morning,  in  the  unromantic  atmosphere  induced 
by  an  early  breakfast,  and  Sir  Francis'  anxiety  to  make  sure 
of  catching  the  connection,  politely  concealed,  but  quite  evi- 
dent to  the  perceptions  of  his  wife  and  daughter,  Noel 
Cardew  and  Alex  exchanged  their  brief  and  entirely  public 
farewell. 

[122] 


NOEL 


**  I'll  write  about  the  book,"  was  his  cheerful  parting 
assurance. 

"  Don't  forget,"  said  Alex. 

Lady  Isabel  was  rather  humorous  on  the  subject  of  ftn  de 
siecle  emancipation,  amongst  the  house  party  in  the  midst 
of  which  she  and  her  daughter  found  themselves  that  eve- 
ning. 

"  What  are  boys  and  girls  coming  to  ?  I  hear  young  men 
gaily  promisin'  to  write  to  Alex  on  all  sorts  of  subjects, 
and  making  private  assignations  with  her,"  she  declared 
amusedly.  "  Aren't  you  and  that  nice-looking  Cardew  boy 
writin'  a  book  in  collaboration,  or  something,  darling  ?  " 

The  slight  jest  was  made  popular  amongst  her  seniors, 
and  Alex  was  kindly  rallied  about  her  modern  freedom  and 
assumption  of  privileges  undreamed  of  by  the  older  genera- 
tion. The  inference  obviously  placed  upon  her  friendship 
with  Noel  Cardew  was  evident,  and  pleased  her  starved 
vanity  even  more  than  the  agreeable  amount  of  flattery  and 
attention  which  at  last  was  being  bestowed  upon  her. 

It  was  her  first  hint  of  success  achieved  amid  standards 
which  she  had  been  taught  to  believe  were  all-prevalent. 
Brushed  lightly  by  the  passing  wing  of  triumph,  she  became 
eager  and  self-confident,  even  rather  over-clamorous  in  the 
assertion  of  her  own  individuality,  as  had  been  the  child 
Alex  in  the  nursery  at  Clevedon  Square. 

Lady  Isabel  did  not  check  her.  She  made  subtle  ex- 
ploitation of  Alex'  youth  and  sudden,  rather  boisterous 
gaiety,  and  occasionally  laughed  a  little,  and  alluded  to  the 
collaboration  scheme  between  her  and  Noel  Cardew.  "  But 
all  the  same,  darlin'  child,"  she  observed  to  Alex  in  private, 
"  I  can't  have  you  correspondin'  with  young  men  all  over 
the  country  unbeknown  to  me.  Once  in  a  way  is  all  very 
well,  perhaps,  but  you'll  have  to  let  me  see  the  letters,  I 
think." 

Alex  was  only  mildly  resentful  of  the  injunction.  She 
surmised  shrewdly  enough  that  her  mother  was  more  anx- 
ious to  establish  the  authentic  existence  of  a  correspond- 

[123] 


CONSEQUENCES 


ence  between  Noel  Cardew  and  herself  than  to  supervise 
the  details  of  it.  She  herself  waited  with  frantic,  furtive 
eagerness  for  his  first  letter. 

It  did  not  reach  her  until  after  her  return  to  London. 
Secretly  bitterly  disappointed,  she  read  the  short,  conven- 
tional phrases  and  the  subscription : 

"  I  never  know  how  to  end  up  a  letter,  but  hope  this  will 
be  all  right  —  Yours  very  sincerely, 

"  Noel  E.  Cardew." 

Across  the  top  of  the  front  page  was  a  postscript. 

"  Next  month  I  shall  be  in  town.  Don't  forget  that  I 
am  coming  to  call  upon  you.     I  hope  you  won't  be  *  out '  1 " 

Alex,  to  whom  nothing  was  trivial,  saw  the  proposed  call 
looming  enormous  upon  the  horizon  of  her  days. 

Every  afternoon  she  either  sat  beside  Lady  Isabel  in  the 
carriage  in  an  agony,  with  only  one  thought  in  her  mind  — 
the  expectation  of  finding  Noel's  card  upon  the  hall  table  on 
their  return  —  or  else  took  her  part  disjointedly  and  with 
obvious  absent-mindedness  in  the  entertainment  of  her  moth- 
er's visitors. 

When,  during  a  crowded  At  Home  afternoon,  in  the 
course  of  which  she  had  necessarily  ceased  to  listen  for  the 
sound  of  the  front-door  bell,  "  Mr.  Cardew  "  was  at  length 
announced,  Alex  felt  almost  unable  to  turn  round  and  face 
the  entering  visitor. 

Her  own  imagination,  untempered  either  by  humour  or 
by  experience,  had  led  her  to  picture  the  next  encounter 
between  herself  and  Noel  so  frequently,  and  with  such  a 
prodigal  folly  of  romantic  detail,  that  it  seemed  incredible 
to  her  that  the  reality  should  take  place  within  a  few  in- 
stants, amidst  brief,  conventional  words  and  gestures. 

Noel  did  not  talk  about  the  book  that  they  were  to  write 
together,  although  he  remained  beside  Alex  most  of  the 
afternoon.  Only  just  as  he  was  leaving,  he  asked  cheer- 
fully: 

[124] 


NOEL 


"  You've  not  forgotten  our  collaboration,  have  you,  part- 
ner? I've  heaps  of  things  to  discuss  with  you,  only  you 
were  so  busy  this  afternoon,  looking  after  all  those  people." 

*'  We  shall  be  in  on  Sunday,"  Alex  told  him  eagerly,  "  and 
there  won't  be  such  a  crowd." 

"  Oh,  good,"  said  Noel.  "  Perhaps  we'll  meet  in  the  Park 
before  that,  though." 

"  I  hope  so,"  said  Alex. 

They  met  in  the  Park  and  elsewhere,  and  Noel,  all  through 
the  ensuing  weeks  before  Christmas,  called  often  at  the 
house  in  Clevedon  Square. 

Lady  Isabel  twice  asked  him  to  dinner,  but  although  he 
was  once  placed  next  her,  on  neither  occasion,  to  Alex* 
astonished  resentment  was  he  assigned  to  her  as  a  partner. 

Alex,  for  the  first  time  conscious  of  being  sought  after, 
and  receiving  with  avidity  the  fragments  that  fell  to  her 
share,  forced  herself  to  believe  that  they  would  eventually 
constitute  that  impossible  whole  of  which  she  had  dreamed 
wildly  and  extravagantly  all  her  life. 

Into  the  eager  assents  which  she  gave  to  all  Noel's  many 
theories,  she  read  a  similarity  of  outlook,  into  her  almost 
trembling  readiness  to  fall  in  with  his  every  suggestion,  a 
community  of  tastes,  and  into  his  interminable  expositions 
of  his  own  views  an  appeal  to  her  deeper  sympathies  that 
surely  denoted  the  consciousness  of  affinity  between  them. 

She  was  happy,  although  principally  in  a  nervous  antici- 
pation of  happiness  to  come.  She  was  able,  when  alone,  to 
imagine  that  from  absolutely  impersonal  good  comradeship, 
Noel  would  suddenly  plunge  into  the  impassioned  declara- 
tions of  her  own  fancy,  but  when  she  was  actually  with 
him,  his  cool,  pleasant,  boyish  voice  dispelled  the  folly,  and 
her  fundamental  shyness,  that  never  deserted  her  save  in 
the  realm  of  her  own  thoughts,  was  relieved,  with  an  in- 
tense and  involuntary  relief,  that  it  should  be  so. 

She  saw  Noel's  father  and  mother  again,  and  was  greeted 
by  the  latter  with  a  bright  and  conditional  affectionateness 
that  inspected  even  while  it  acclaimed. 

[125] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


It  was  after  this  that  the  trend  of  Noel's  thoughts  ap- 
peared suddenly  to  change,  and  he  spoke  to  Alex  of  the 
place  in  Devonshire. 

"  One's  first  duty  is  to  the  place,  of  course,"  he  said 
reflectively,  "  and  I'm  not  at  all  sure  that  I  oughtn't  to  look 
into  the  management  of  an  estate,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing, 
very  thoroughly.  Some  day  • —  a  long,  long  time  hence,  of 
course  —  I  shall  have  to  run  our  own  place,  and  I'm  rather 
keen  about  the  duties  of  a  landlord,  and  improving  the  con- 
dition of  the  people.  I  used  to  be  a  Socialist,  as  you  know, 
but  I  must  say  one's  ideas  alter  a  bit  as  one  goes  on  through 
life,  and  I've  had  some  talks  with  the  pater  lately." 

He  broke  off,  and  looked  rather  oddly  at  Alex  for  a 
moment. 

"  They  want  me  to  think  of  settling  down,  I  believe,"  he 
said,  almost  shyly. 

Alex  spent  that  night  in  feverishly  placing  possible  and 
impossible  interpretations  on  the  words,  and  on  the  look 
he  had  given  her. 

The  sense  of  an  approaching  crisis  terrified  her  so  much 
that  she  felt  she  would  have  given  worlds  to  avoid  it. 

The  following  evening  it  came. 

Most  conventionally,  she  met  Noel  Cardew  at  an  evening 
reception,  and  he  conducted  her  rather  solemnly  to  a  small 
conservatory  where  two  chairs  were  placed,  conspicuously 
enough,  beneath  a  solitary  palm. 

An  orchestra  was  just  audible  above  the  hum  and  buzz 
of  conversation. 

"  It's  luck  getting  in  here,"  said  Noel.  "  I  wanted  to  see 
you  very  particularly  tonight.  I  must  say  I  never  thought 
I  should  find  myself  particularly  wanting  to  see  any  girl  — 
in  fact,  I'd  practically  made  up  my  mind  never  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  women  —  but  I  see  now  that  two  people 
who  had  very  much  the  same  sort  of  ideas  about  life  in 
general  could  do  a  tremendous  lot  for  a  place,  and  for  the 
country  generally;  don't  you  agree?  —  and,  of  course — " 
He  became  hopelessly  incoherent,  *'.  .  .  knowing  one  an- 

[126] 


NOEL 


other's  people  —  it  all  makes  such  a  difference  ...  I  could 
never  understand  fellows  running  after  Gaiety  girls  and 
marrying  them,  myself  ! !  After  all,  one's  duty  to  the  estate 
is  .  .  .  and  then,  later  on,  perhaps,  if  one  thought  of  Parlia- 
ment—" 

Alex  felt  that  the  pounding  of  her  heart  was  making  her 
physically  faint,  and  she  raised  her  head  desperately,  in  the 
hope  of  stopping  him.     Noel  met  her  eyes  courageously. 

"  I  wish  you'd  let  me  tell  our  people  that  you  —  that  we  — 
we're  engaged,"  he  said  hoarsely. 

His  words  struck  on  Alex'  ear  almost  meaninglessly. 

Irrationally  in  love  as  she  was,  with  Love,  she  knew  only 
that  he  was  asking  something  of  her  —  that  she  had  at  last 
an  outlet  for  that  which  no  one  had  ever  yet  desired. 

Unable  to  speak,  and  unconscious  of  bathos,  she  vehem- 
ently nodded  her  head. 

Noel  immediately  took  both  her  hands  and  shook  them 
wildly  up  and  down. 

"  Thank  Heaven,  it's  over,"  he  cried  boyishly.  "  You 
can't  imagine  how  I've  been  funking  asking  you  —  I  thought 
you'd  say  yes,  but  one  feels  such  an  awful  fool  —  and  I've 
never  done  it  before.  I  say,  Alex  —  I  can  call  you  Alex 
now,  can't  I  —  you're  like  me,  aren't  you  ?  You  don't  want 
sentimentality.  If  there's  one  thing  I  bar,"  said  the  newly- 
accepted  lover,  "  it's  sentimentality." 


[127] 


XI 

Engagement  of  Marriage 

*<T  AM  engaged  to  be  married,"  Alex  repeated  to  her- 
I       self,  in  a  vain  endeavour  to  realize  the  height  to 

JL  which  she  must  have  now  attained.  But  that  real- 
ization, by  which  she  meant  tangible  certainty,  for  which  she 
craved,  continually  eluded  her. 

The  preliminary  formalities,  indeed,  duly  took  place,  from 
her  own  avowal  before  a  graciously-maternal  Lady  Isabel, 
to  Noel's  formal  interview  with  Sir  Francis  in  the  tradi- 
tional setting  of  the  library. 

After  that,  however,  a  freakish  fate  seemed  to  take  con- 
trol of  all  the  circumstances  connected  with  Alex'  engage- 
ment. 

Noel  Cardew's  father  became  ill,  and  in  the  uncertainty 
consequent  upon  a  state  of  health  which  his  doctor  declared 
might  be  almost  indefinitely  prolonged,  there  could  be  no 
question  of  immediately  announcing  the  engagement. 

"  Just  as  well,  perhaps.  We're  all  delighted  about  it,  but 
they're  both  young  enough  to  wait  a  little  while,"  Lady 
Isabel  smilingly  made  the  best  of  it.  "  Next  year  will  be 
quite  time  enough  to  settle  anything." 

Her  serenity  was  the  obvious  outcome  of  an  extreme  con- 
tentment. 

Alex  found  herself  better  able  to  regard  herself  in  the 
light  of  one  betrothed  in  her  mother's  company  than  in  that 
of  Noel.  He  treated  her  almost  exactly  as  he  had  always 
done,  with  cheerful  good-fellowship,  and  only  at  the  very 
outset  of  the  engagement  with  any  tinge  of  shyness  in  his 
bearing. 

"Of  course,  I  ought  to  have  got  a  ring,"  he  said  very 
seriously,  *'  but  I  don't  believe  in  taking  any  chances,  and  so, 

[128] 


ENGAGEMENT   OF   MARRIAGE 

just  in  case  there  was  any  hitch,  I  waited.     Besides,  I  don't 
know  what  you  like  best  —  you'll  have  to  choose." 

Alex  smiled  at  the  words.  There  was  a  glamour  about 
such  a  choice,  even  beyond  that  with  which  her  own  sense 
of  the  romantic  perforce  enveloped  it. 

She  wondered  whether  she  would  be  allowed  to  go  with 
Noel  to  a  jeweller's,  or  whether  he  would,  after  all,  choose 
his  token  alone,  and  bring  it  to  her,  and  place  it  on  her 
finger  with  one  of  those  low,  ardently-spoken  sentences 
which  she  could  hear  so  clearly  in  her  own  mind,  and  which 
seemed  so  strangely  and  utterly  impossible  in  Noel's  real 
presence. 

But  the  arrival  of  Noel's  ring,  after  all,  took  her  by  sur- 
prise. 

He  had  been  lunching  with  them  in  Clevedon  Square, 
when  the  jeweller's  assistant  was  announced,  just  as  Lady 
Isabel  was  rising  from  the  luncheon-table. 

She  turned  enquiringly. 

"Noel?" 

"  I  told  him  to  come  here.  I  thought  you  wouldn't  mind. 
You  see,  I  want  Alex  to  choose  her  ring." 

"  Oh,  my  dear  boy !  how  very  exciting !  But  may  we 
see  too  ?  " 

Mrs.  Cardew  was  also  present. 

"  Oh,  rather,"  said  Noel  heartily.  "  We  shall  want  your 
advice." 

They  all  trooped  hastily  into  the  library,  where  the  man 
was  waiting,  with  the  very  large  assortment  of  gleaming 
rings  ordered  for  inspection  by  Noel. 

"What  beauties!"  said  Lady  Isabel.  "But,  really,  I 
don't  know  if  I  ought  to  let  him."* 

She  glanced  at  Mrs.  Cardew,  who  said  in  a  very  audible 
voice : 

"Of  course.  He's  so  happy.  It's  quite  delightful  to 
watch  them  both." 

She  was  looking  hard  and  appraisingly  at  the  rings  as 
she  spoke. 

[129] 


CONSEQUENCES 


Alex  looked  at  them  too,  quite  unseeing  of  their  glittering 
magnificence,  but  acutely  conscious  that  every  one  was  wait- 
ing for  her  first  word. 

"  Oh,  how  lovely !  "  she  exclaimed  faintly. 

She  chid  herself  violently  for  the  sick  disappointment 
that  invaded  her,  not,  indeed,  at  the  matter,  but  at  the  man- 
ner of  the  gift. 

And  yet  she  realized  dimly,  that  it  was  impossible  that  it 
should  have  happened  in  any  other  way  —  that  any  other 
way,  indeed,  would  have  been  as  utterly  uncharacteristic  of 
Noel  Cardew  as  this  was  typical. 

"  Which  do  you  like?"  he  asked  her.  "  I  chose  all  the 
most  original  ones  I  could  see.  I  always  like  unconven- 
tional designs  better  than  conventional  ones,  I'm  afraid. 
Where's  that  long  one  you  showed  me  this  morning  ?  " 

"The  diamond  marquise,  sir?"  The  assistant  deferen- 
tially produced  it,  glancing  the  while  at  Alex. 

"  That's  it,"  said  Noel  eagerly.  "Try  it  on,  Alex,  won't 
you?" 

He  used  her  name  quite  freely  and  without  any  shyness. 

Alex  felt  more  of  genuine  excitement,  and  less  of  wistful 
bewilderment,  than  at  any  moment  since  Noel  had  first  asked 
her  to  marry  him,  as  she  shyly  held  out  her  left  hand  and 
the  jeweller  slipped  the  heavy,  beautiful  ring  onto  her  third 
finger. 

She  had  long,  slim  hands,  the  fingers  rather  too  thin  and 
the  knuckles,  though  small,  too  prominent  for  beauty.  But, 
thanks  to  the  tyranny  of  old  Nurse,  and  to  Lady  Isabel's 
insistence  upon  the  use  of  nightly  glycerine-and-honey,  they 
were  exquisitely  soft  and  white. 

The  diamonds  gleamed  and  flashed  at  her  as  she  moved 
the  ring  up  and  down  her  finger. 

"  We  can  easily  make  it  smaller,  to  fit  your  finger,"  said 
the  jeweller's  assistant. 

"  It  really  is  beautiful.     Look,  Francis,"  said  Lady  Isabel. 

Alex'  father  put  up  his  glasses,  and  after  inspection  he 
also  exclaimed : 

[130] 


ENGAGEMENT   OF   MARRIAGE 

"  Beautiful." 

"  You've  such  little  fingers,  dear,  it'll  have  to  be  made 
smaller,"  said  Mrs.  Cardew  graciously. 

"  Is  it  to  be  that  one,  then  ?  "  Lady  Isabel  asked. 

Alex  saw  that  her  mother's  pretty,  youthful-looking  flush 
of  pleasurable  excitement  had  mounted  to  her  face.  She 
herself,  conscious  of  an  inexplicable  oppression,  felt  tongue- 
tied,  and  unable  to  do  more  than  repeat  foolishly  and  life- 
lessly : 

"  Oh,  it's  lovely,  it's  perfectly  lovely.  It's  too  beauti- 
ful." 

Noel,  however,  looked  gratified  at  the  words  of  admira- 
tion. 

**  That's  the  one  /  like,"  he  said  with  emphasis.  "  I  knew 
when  I  saw  them  this  morning  that  I  liked  that  one  much 
the  best.     We'll  settle  on  that  one,  then,  shall  we  ?  " 

"  You  silly  boy,"  laughed  his  mother,  "  that's  for  Alex  to 
decide.  Perhaps  she  likes  something  else  better.  Try  the 
emerald,  Alex  ? " 

"  Oh,  this  is  lovely,"  repeated  Alex  again,  shrinking  back 
a  little.  Furious  with  herself,  she  was  yet  only  desirous  that 
the  scene  should  not  be  prolonged  any  longer. 

"Come  and  look  at  it  in  the  light?"  The  urgent  pres- 
sure of  Lady  Isabel's  hand  on  her  arm  drew  her  into  the 
emibrasure  of  the  window. 

"  Alex,"  said  her  mother  low  and  swiftly,  all  the  time 
holding  up  her  hand  against  the  light  as  though  studying 
the  ring.  "  Alex,  you  must  be  more  gracious.  What  is  the 
matter  with  you  ?  " 

"  Nothing,"  said  Alex  childishly,  feeling  inclined  to  burst 
into  tears. 

"  Then  for  Heaven's  sake  do  try  and  smile  and  show  a 
little  enthusiasm,"  said  her  mother  with  unwonted  sharp- 
ness. 

Alex,  scarlet,  and  most  visibly  discomposed,  returned  to 
the  group  round  the  library  table. 

Forcing  herself  to  make  some  attempt  at  obeying  her 

[131] 


CONSEQUENCES 


mother's  behest,  she  picked  up  the  nearest  jewel,  two  pearls 
in  a  prettily-twisted  setting,  and  began  to  examine  it. 

"  I  like  that  design,  too.  It's  original,"  said  Mrs.  Car- 
dew. 

"  Oh,  but  pearls  are  unlucky  —  she  couldn't  have  pearls," 
protested  Lady  Isabel. 

"  They  mean  tears,  don't  they? "  Alex  contributed  to  the 
discussion,  for  the  sake  of  making  her  mother  see  that  she 
was  willing  to  do  her  best. 

"Are  you  superstitious?"  Noel  asked  rather  reproach- 
fully. "  I  can't  say  I  believe  in  all  that  sort  of  thing  my- 
self, you  know.  In  fact  I  make  rather  a  principle  of  doing 
things  on  a  13th,  or  walking  under  ladders,  and  all  the  rest 
of  it,  just  to  prove  there's  nothing  in  it." 

Sir  Francis  fixed  the  young  man  benevolently  through  his 
monocle. 

**  I  presume,  however,  that  in  this  instance  you  prefer 
not  to  tempt  the  gods,"  he  remarked  affably,  and  Noel,  al- 
ways obviously  in  awe  of  his  betrothed's  father,  hastily 
agreed  with  him. 

"Then  it's  diamonds,  is  it?  —  unless  Alex  prefers  the 
emerald.'^ 

"  I  like  the  diamond  one  best,"  Noel  reiterated.  "  I  really 
pitched  on  that  one  the  minute  I  saw  it.  I  like  original- 
ity." 

"Well,  it  couldn't  be  lovelier,"  said  Lady  Isabel  con- 
tentedly. 

The  jeweller  was  shown  out,  leaving  the  diamond  mar- 
quise ring,  in  its  little  white-velvet  case,  on  the  table  in 
front  of  Alex. 

Sir  Francis  opened  the  door  for  his  wife  and  Mrs.  Car- 
dew. 

"  Oh,"  said  Noel  urgently.  "  You  must  stay  and  see  her 
put  it  on." 

Both  ladies  laughed  at  the  boyish  exclamation,  and  Alex 
flushed  scarlet  once  more. 

Noel  opened  the  case  and  looked  proudly  at  his  gift. 

[132] 


ENGAGEMENT   OF  MARRIAGE 

"  You  must  put  it  on  for  her,"  said  his  mother,  "  when 
it's  been  made  smaller." 

The  hint  was  unmistakable. 

Noel  held  out  the  ring. 

"  Let's  see  it  on  now  at  once,  Alex.  It  can  go  back  to 
the  shop  later." 

Alex,  in  a  sort  of  utter  desperation,  thrust  out  her  hand, 
and  Noel,  politely  and  carefully  avoiding  touching  it  with 
his  own,  slipped  the  heavy  hoop  over  her  linger. 

"  Thank  you,"  she  stammered. 

There  was  another  laugh. 

*'  Poor  dears !  Let's  leave  them  in  peace,"  cried  Mrs. 
Cardew  mockingly,  and  rustled  to  the  door  again. 

"  Did  you  ever  see  anything  so  young  as  they  both  are?  " 
she  murmured  sweetly  to  Lady  Isabel,  audibly  enough  for 
Alex  to  guess  at  the  words,  if  she  did  not  actually  hear 
them. 

She  was  thankful  that  they  should  no  longer  be  watch- 
ing her,  and  turned  with  something  like  relief  to  Noel's 
gratified,  uncritical  looks. 

It  became  suddenly  much  easier  to  speak  unconstrainedly. 

Perhaps  she  was  subconsciously  aware  that  of  all  of  them, 
it  was  Noel  himself  who  would  expect  the  least  of  her, 
because  his  demands  upon  her  were  so  infinitesimal. 

"  It's  a  beautiful  ring;  thank  you  very,  very  much.  I  — " 
She  stopped  and  gulped,  then  said  bravely,  "  I  love  it." 

She  emphasized  the  word  almost  without  knowing  it,  as 
though  to  force  from  him  some  response. 

Although  she  had  never  actually  realized  it,  it  was  a 
word  which,  in  point  of  fact,  had  never  yet  passed  between 
them.  Noel's  fair  face  coloured  at  last,  as  his  light  eyes 
met  her  unconsciously  tragical  gaze. 

"Alex  a  son  air  bete  aujourd'hui" 

With  horrid  inappropriateness,  the  hated  gibe  of  her 
schooldays  flashed  into  Alex'  thoughts,  stiffening  her  face 
into  the  old  lines  of  morbid,  self-conscious  misery. 

Part  of  her  mind,  in  unwilling  detachment,  contemplated 

[133] 


CONSEQUENCES 


ruefully  the  oddly  inadequate  spectacle  which  they  must 
present,  staring  shamefacedly  at  one  another  across  the 
glittering  token  of  their  troth. 

Frenziedly  desirous  of  breaking  the  silence,  heavy  with 
awkwardness,  that  hung  between  them,  she  began  to  speak 
hastily  and  almost  at  random. 

"  Thank  you  so  very  much  —  I've  never  had  such  a  lovely 
present  —  it's  lovely ;  thank  you  so  much." 

"  I  thought  you'd  like  it,"  muttered  Noel,  more  overcome 
with  confusion,  if  possible,  than  was  Alex. 

"  Oh,  yes,  yes.     It's  lovely." 

"  I  thought  you'd  like  something  rather  original,  you 
know,  not  a  conventional  one." 

"Oh,  yes!" 

"  You're  sure  you  wouldn't  rather  have  one  of  the  others 
—  that  emerald  one  that  mother  liked  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no." 

*'  I  dare  say  they'd  let  me  change  it,  the  man  knows  us 
very  well." 

"  Oh,  no,  no." 

"  Well,  I,  I  —  Vm  awfully  glad  you  like  it." 

"  Yes,  I  do  like  it.     I  —  I  think  it's  lovely." 

"  I  —  I  thought  you'd  like  it." 

Alex  began  to  feel  as  though  she  was  in  a  nightmare,  but 
she  was  mysteriously  unable  to  put  an  end  to  their  sorry 
dialogue. 

"  It's  perfectly  lovely,  I  think.  I  don't  know  how  to 
thank  you." 

Noel  swallowed  two  or  three  times,  visibly  and  audibly, 
and  then  took  a  couple  of  determined  steps  towards  her. 

"  I  think  you  —  you'd  better  let  me  kiss  you,"  he  said 
hoarsely.     "  You  haven't  yet,  you  know." 

Something  deep  down  within  Alex  was  surging  up  in 
angry  bewilderment,  and  she  was  sufficiently  aware  of  a 
sense  of  protest  to  rebut  it  indignantly  and  with  lightning- 
swift  determination. 

It  was  the  humility  of  love  that  had  prompted  her  lover 

[134] 


ENGAGEMENT   OF   MARRIAGE 

to  crave  that  permission  which  should  never  have  been 
asked. 

So  she  told  herself  in  the  flash  of  a  moment,  while  she 
waited  for  Noel's  kiss  to  lift  her  once  and  for  all  into  some 
far  realm  of  romance  where  trivial  details  of  manifestation 
should  no  longer  obscure  the  true  values  of  life. 

Unconsciously,  she  had  shut  her  eyes,  but  at  an  unac- 
countable pause  in  the  proceedings,  she  opened  them  again. 

Noel  was  carefully  removing  his  pince-nez. 

"  I  say,"  he  stammered,  "  you're  —  you're  sure  you  don't 
mind?" 

If  Alex  had  followed  the  impulse  of  her  own  feelings, 
she  must  have  cried  out  at  this  juncture: 

"  Not  if  you're  quick  and  get  it  over !  " 

But  instead,  she  heard  herself  murmuring  feebly : 

"  Oh,  no,  not  at  all." 

She  hastily  raised  her  face,  turning  it  sideways  to  Noel, 
and  felt  his  lips  gingerly  touching  the  middle  of  her  cheek. 
Then  she  opened  her  eyes  again,  and,  scrupulously  avoid- 
ing Noel's  embarrassed  gaze,  saw  him  diligently  polishing 
his  pince-nez  before  replacing  them. 

It  was  the  apotheosis  of  their  anti-climax. 

Alex  possessed  neither  the  light-heartedness  which  is  — 
mistakenly  —  generally  ascribed  to  youth,  nor  the  philosophy, 
to  face  facts  with  any  determination. 

She  continued  to  cram  her  unwilling  mind  with  illusions 
which  her  innermost  self  perfectly  recognized  as  such. 

It  was,  on  the  whole,  easier  to  place  her  own  interpretation 
upon  Noel's  every  act  of  commission  or  omission  when 
the  shyness  subsequent  to  their  first  ill-conducted  embrace 
had  left  him,  which  it  speedily  did.  Easier  still,  when  in- 
tercourse between  them  was  renewed  upon  much  the  same 
terms  of  impersonal  enthusiasm  in  discussion  as  in  Scot- 
land, and  easiest  of  all  when  Alex  herself,  in  retrospect, 
wrenched  a  sentimental  significance  out  of  words  or  looks 
that  had  been  meaningless  at  the  time  of  their  occurrence. 

When  Noel  went  to  Devonshire,  whither  his  father  by 

[135] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


slow,  invalid  degrees  had  at  last  been  allowed  to  move,  he 
said  to  Alex  in  farewell: 

**  I  shall  expect  to  hear  from  you  very  often,  mind.  I 
always  like  getting  letters,  though  I'm  afraid  I'm  not  much 
good  at  writing  them.  You  know  what  I  mean:  I  can 
write  simply  pages  if  I'm  in  the  mood  —  just  as  though  I 
were  talking  to  some  one  —  and  other  days  I  can't  put  pen 
to  paper." 

"  I  don't  think  I  write  very  good  letters  myself,"  said 
Alex  wistfully,  in  the  hope  of  eliciting  reassurance. 

"  Oh,  never  mind,"  said  Noel  consolingly.  "  Just  write 
when  you  feel  like  it." 

Alex,  who  had  composed  a  score  of  imaginary  love-letters, 
both  on  his  behalf  and  her  own,  tried  to  compensate  herself 
the  following  evening  for  the  vague  misery  that  was  en- 
compassing her  spirit,  by  writing. 

She  was  alone  in  her  own  room,  the  fire  had  fallen  into 
red  embers,  and  her  surroundings  were  sufficiently  appro- 
priate to  render  attainable  the  state  of  mind  which  she  de- 
sired to  achieve. 

As  she  involuntarily  rehearsed  to  herself  the  elements  of 
her  own  situation,  she  lulled  herself  into  a  species  of  happi- 
ness. 

His  ring  on  her  finger,  his  letter  on  its  way  to  her  —  she 
was  going  to  write  to  the  man  who  had  asked  her  to  become 
his  wife. 

There  was  really  some  one  at  last,  Alex  told  herself,  to 
whom  she  had  become  the  centre  of  the  universe,  to  whom 
her  letters  would  matter,  to  whom  everything  that  she  might 
think  or  feel  would  be  of  importance. 

She  remembered  Maurice  Goldstein,  his  knowledge  of 
Queenie's  every  movement,  his  triumphant  rapture  at  being 
allowed  to  take  her  out  to  luncheon  or  tea.  Even  now,  Alex 
had  seen  him  follow  his  wife  with  his  ardent,  glowing  gaze, 
as  she  moved,  serene  and  graceful,  round  a  crowded  room  on 
the  arm  of  some  other  man  —  and  the  look  had  made  her 

[136] 


ENGAGEMENT    OF   MARRIAGE 

heart  throb  sympathetically,  and  perhaps  not  altogether  un- 
enviously. 

Almost  fiercely  she  told  herself  that  she  had  Noel's  love. 
She  was  to  him  what  Queenie  was  to  young  Goldstein. 

To  every  rebellious  doubt  that  rose  within  her,  she  op- 
posed the  soundless,  vehement  assertions,  that  the  indelible 
proof  of  Noel's  love  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  had  asked  her 
to  marry  him. 

Gradually  she  persuaded  herself  that  only  her  own  self- 
consciousness,  of  which  she  was  never  more  aware  than 
when  with  Noel,  was  responsible  for  that  stange  lack,  which 
she  dared  not  attempt  to  define,  lest  in  so  doing  she  should 
shatter  the  feeble  structure  built  out  of  sentimentality  and 
resolute  self -blinding. 

Partly  because  she  instinctively  craved  a  relief  to  her 
own  feelings,  and  partly  because  she  had  really  almost  made 
herself  believe  in  the  truth  of  her  own  imaginings,  Alex 
wrote  her  first  love-letter,  the  shy,  yet  passionately-worded 
self-expression  of  a  young  and  intensely  romantic  girl,  in 
love  with  the  thought  of  Love,  too  ignorant  for  reserve,  and 
yet  too  conscious  of  the  novelty  of  her  own  experience  for 
absolute  spontaneity. 

Alex  did  not  sleep  after  she  had  written  her  letter,  but 
she  lay  in  bed  in  the  warm,  soft  glow  of  the  firelight,  and 
saw  the  square,  white  envelope  within  which  she  had  sealed 
her  letter,  leaning  against  the  silver  inkstand  on  her  writing- 
table. 

When  the  maid  came  to  her  in  the  morning,  she  brought 
a  letter  addressed  in  Noel's  unformed  hand. 

It  was  quite  short,  and  began: 

"  Dearest  Alex  (is  that  right?)  " 

It  told  her  of  the  journey  to  Devonshire,  of  an  improve- 
ment in  the  invalid's  state  of  health,  and  of  Noel's  own  pro- 
jected tour  of  inspection  round  the  estate,  which  he  thought 
had  been  neglected  by  his  agent  of  late. 

[137] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  But  I  shall  be  able  to  put  all  that  right,  I  hope,  as  I'm 
rather  keen  about  the  housing  of  the  poor,  and  questions  of 
that  sort.  You  might  look  out  for  any  decent  book  on 
social  economy,  will  you,  Alex  ?  " 

The  letter  did  not  extend  beyond  the  bottom  of  the  sec- 
ond page,  but  Noel  was  going  to  write  again  in  a  day  or 
two,  when  there  was  more  to  tell  her,  and  with  love  to 
every  one,  he  was  hers  for  ever  and  a  day,  Noel. 

Alex'  reply  went  to  Trevose  the  same  day,  but  the  letter 
she  had  written  in  the  firelight,  she  burnt. 


[138] 


XII 

Christmas  Pantomime 

THE  engagement  was  not  announced,  but  a  good  many 
people  knew  about  it. 
Their  congratulations  pleased  Alex,  as   did  her 
mother's  obvious  pride  and  satisfaction. 

She  liked  wearing  her  diamond  ring,  although  she  only 
did  so  at  home,  and  she  even  found  pleasure  in  writing  of 
her  new  dignities  to  Barbara  at  Neuilly. 

In  such  trivial  anodynes  did  Alex  seek  oblivion  for  the 
ever-increasing  terror  that  was  gaining  upon  her. 

Noel  came  back  from  Devonshire  after  Christmas  —  and 
Lady  Isabel  sometimes  spoke  tentatively  to  Alex  of  a  wed- 
ding early  in  the  season. 

"Jubilee  year  would  be  so  charming  for  your  wedding, 
my  darling,"  she  said  effusively. 

Alex  thought  of  a  white  satin  dress  and  long  train,  of 
orange  blossom  and  a  lace  veil,  of  bridesmaids,  presents,  the 
exciting  music  of  Mendelssohn's  Wedding  March,  and  the 
glory  of  a  wedding-ring.  On  any  other  aspects  of  the  case 
her  mind  refused  to  dwell. 

Nevertheless,  she  made  little  or  no  response  to  her  moth- 
er's hinted  suggestions.  Neither  Noel  nor  Alex  ever  ex- 
changed the  slightest  reference  to  their  marriage,  although 
Noel  often  discoursed  freely  of  a  Utopian  future  for  the 
tenantry  at  Trevose,  the  basis  of  which,  by  implication, 
was  his  suzerainty  and  that  of  Alex. 

"  I  rather  believe  in  the  old-fashioned  feudal  system,  per- 
sonally. You  may  say  that's  just  the  contrary  of  my  old 
socialistic  ideas,  Alex,  but  then  I  always  think  it's  a  mis- 
take to  be  absolutely  cast-iron  in  one's  convictions.  One 
ought  to  assimilate  new  ideas  as  one  goes  through  life,  and, 

[139] 


CONSEQUENCES 


of  course,  sometimes  they're  bound  to  displace  preconceived 
notions.  I'm  a  tremendous  believer  in  experience;  it 
teaches  one  better  than  anything  else.  Besides,  Emerson 
says,  *  Dare  to  be  inconsistent.'  I'm  keen  on  Emerson,  you 
know.    Are  you  ? " 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  Alex  enthusiastically,  wishing  to  be  sym- 
pathetic. **  But  I  only  read  Emerson  a  long  while  ago, 
when  I  was  at  school.     Noel,  were  you  happy  at  school  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  Noel  unemotionally.  "  The  great  thing 
at  school  is  to  be  keen,  and  get  on  with  the  other  fellows. 
They  were  always  very  decent  to  me." 

*'  I  wasn't  very  happy,"  said  Alex.  She  was  passionately 
desirous  of  sympathy,  and  was  full  of  youth's  mistaken 
conviction,  that  unhappiness  is  provocative  of  interest. 

Noel  cheerfully  and  unconsciously  disabused  her  of  the 
idea. 

"Of  course,  girls  don't  have  nearly  such  a  good  time  as 
boys  do  at  school.  But  don't  let's  talk  about  rotten  things 
like  being  unhappy.  I  always  believe  in  taking  things  as 
they  come,  don't  you?  I  never  look  back,  personally.  I 
think  it's  morbid.  One  ought  always  to  be  looking  ahead. 
I  tell  you  what  I'll  do,  Alex  —  I'll  give  you  a  copy  of  Emer- 
son's Essays.    You  ought  to  read  them." 

Noel  was  very  generous,  and  often  made  her  presents. 
Alex  was  disproportionately  grateful,  but  to  her  extreme, 
though  unavowed  relief,  he  never  again  claimed  such  a 
recognition  as  that  which  had  followed  the  bestowal  of  her 
engagement-ring. 

She  drifted  on  from  day  to  day,  scarcely  aware  of  her 
own  unhappiness,  but  wondering  bitterly  why  this,  the  su- 
preme initiation,  should  seem  to  fail  her  so  utterly,  and  still 
hoping  against  hope  that  the  personal  element  for  which  she 
looked  so  avidly,  might  yet  enter  into  her  relation  with  Noel. 

One  day  she  told  herself,  with  shock  of  discovery,  that 
Noel  was  curiously  obtuse.  He  had  taken  her  with  Lady 
Isabel  and  his  brother  Eric  to  Prince's  skating-rink.  Alex 
did  not  skate,  but  she  enjoyed  hearing  the  band  and  watch- 

[140] 


CHRISTMAS   PANTOMIME 

ing  the  skaters.  Eric  Cardew  was  among  the  latter,  and 
Alex  recognized  Queenie  Goldstein,  in  magnificent  furs. 

"  Noel,  do  you  see  that  very  fair  girl  —  the  one  in  blue  ? 
She  was  my  great  friend  at  school." 

Alex  at  the  same  instant  saw  a  look  of  fleeting,  but  un- 
mistakable vexation  on  her  mother's  face  at  the  descrip- 
tion. 

"  Why,  that's  Mrs.  Goldstein,  isn't  it?"  said  Noel,  screw- 
ing up  his  eyes  in  an  interested  look. 

"  Yes.  I  wish  I  could  catch  her  eye."  Alex  was  reckless 
of  her  mother.  "  I  haven't  talked  to  her  for  such  a  long 
while.     Do  you  know  her  ?  " 

**  I've  met  her  once  or  twice." 

"  Couldn't  you  go  and  speak  to  her,  and  bring  her  over 
here  ?  "  asked  Alex  wistfully. 

Noel  looked  at  her,  surprised. 

*'  I  don't  think  I  can  do  that.     She  wants  to  skate." 

"  Of  course  not,"  broke  in  Lady  Isabel.  **  Don't  be  a 
little  goose,  Alex.     What  do  you  want  her  for  ?  " 

"  Oh,  nothing,"  Alex  replied  dejectedly,  and  also  very 
crossly. 

She  was  in  the  frame  of  mind  that  seeks  a  grievance,  and 
her  nerves  were  far  more  overstrained  than  she  realized. 

She  felt  a  sudden,  absolute  anger  when  Noel  said  didac- 
tically : 

"  I  don't  think  it  would  be  very  good  manners  for  me  to 
go  and  force  myself  on  Mrs.  Goldstein's  notice.  I  don't 
know  her  at  all  well,  and  there  are  heaps  of  people  who  want 
to  talk  to  her  —  just  look  at  all  those  fellows !  " 

"  You  might  do  it  just  to  please  me,"  muttered  Alex,  less 
from  coquettery  than  from  injured  pride. 

Noel  became  rather  red,  and  after  a  minute  he  remarked 
in  a  severe  voice: 

"  I  must  say,  Alex,  I  think  that's  rather  a  ridiculous  thing 
to  say." 

Alex  was  silent,  but  from  that  day  the  spirit  of  resent- 
ment had  at  last  awakened  within  her. 

[141] 


CONSEQUENCES 


She  became  irritable,  and  although  she  still  strove  to 
persuade  herself  that  her  engagement  meant  the  ultimate 
realization  of  happiness,  she  often  spoke  impatiently  to  Noel, 
and  no  longer  sought  to  conform  herself  to  the  type  of 
womanhood  which  he  obviously  desired  and  expected  to 
find  her. 

The  old  sense  of  "  waiting  for  the  next  thing  "  was  strong 
upon  her,  and  she  spent  her  days  in  desultory  idleness,  since 
Lady  Isabel  made  fewer  engagements  for  her,  and  Noel's 
calls  upon  her  time  were  far  from  excessive. 

She  made  the  discovery  then,  less  illuminating  at  the 
time  than  when  viewed  afterwards  in  retrospect,  that  she 
could  not  bear  to  read  novels. 

All  of  them,  sooner  or  later,  seemed  to  deal  with  the  rela- 
tions between  a  man  and  a  woman  in  love,  and  Alex  found 
herself  reading  of  emotions  and  experiences  of  which  her 
own  seemed  so  feeble  a  mockery,  that  she  was  conscious 
of  a  physical  pang  of  sick  disappointment. 

Was  all  fiction  utterly  untrue  to  life?  or  was  hers  the 
counterfeit,  while  the  printed  pages  but  reproduced  some- 
thing of  a  reality  which  was  denied  to  her? 

She  dared  not  face  the  question,  and  was  further  per- 
plexed by  the  axiom  mechanically  passed  on  by  successive 
authorities  in  rebuke  of  her  childhood's  passion  for  read- 
ing: 

"  You  can't  learn  anything  about  Real  Life  from  story- 
books." 

At  all  events,  Alex  found  the  story-books  of  no  solace 
to  her  mental  sickness,  and  turned  away  from  their  perusal 
with  a  sinking  heart. 

She  seldom  quarrelled  with  Noel  because,  although  he 
was  sometimes  unmistakably  offended  at  her  petulance,  he 
never  lost  his  temper.  On  the  contrary,  he  argued  with  her 
at  such  length  that  Alex,  although  the  arguments  left  her 
quite  unconvinced  of  the  rightness  of  his  point  of  view, 
often  gave  in  from  sheer  weariness  and  the  sense  of  hopeless, 
exhausting  muddle. 

[142] 


CHRISTMAS   PANTOMIME 

She  could  visualize  no  possible  eventual  solution  of  the 
intangible  problem  that  somewhere  lay  heavy,  undefined  and 
undefinable,  at  the  back  of  all  her  thoughts. 

It  seemed  to  her  that  such  a  state  of  affairs  had  endured 
for  a  lifetime,  and  must  extend  into  eternity,  when  her  rela- 
tions with  Noel  entered  into  the  inevitable  crisis  to  which 
a  fortnight's  mutual  fret  and  dissatisfaction  had  been  only 
the  prelude. 

Sir  Francis,  graciously  benevolent,  invited  Noel  Cardew 
to  make  one  of  an  annual  gathering  that,  for  the  Clare 
children,  amounted  to  an  institution  —  to  view  the  Christmas 
pantomime  at  Drury  Lane.  For  more  years  than  any  of 
them,  except  Alex,  could  remember,  a  box  at  the  panto- 
mime had  been  the  yearly  almost  the  solitary,  expression 
of  Sir  Francis  Clare's  recognition  of  his  younger  children's 
existence  as  beings  other  than  merely  ornamental  adjuncts 
to  their  mother. 

Lady  Isabel,  who  detested  pantomimes,  never  joined  the 
party,  and  Alex  could  remember  still  —  had,  indeed,  never 
altogether  lost  —  the  feeling  of  extreme  awe  that  rendered 
unnecessary  old  Nurse's  severe  injunctions  to  the  children 
as  to  the  behaviour  suitable  to  so  great  an  occasion. 

This  year,  Barbara  was  at  Neuilly,  and  it  was  considered 
inadvisable  to  "  unsettle  "  her  by  a  return  to  London  for 
the  Christmas  holidays.  But  Cedric  was  at  home,  and 
Archie  and  Pamela,  as  clamorous  as  they  dared  to  be  for 
their  father's  treat. 

Sir  Francis  did  not  sacrifice  himself  to  the  extent  of 
foregoing  late  dinner  altogether,  but  he  dined  at  seven 
o'clock,  and  issued  what  more  nearly  approached  to  a  royal 
mandate  than  an  invitation,  to  Alex,  Cedric  and  Noel  to 
bear  him  company. 

The  big  cuckoo  clock  in  the  hall  still  showed  the  hour  as 
short  of  eight  o'clock  when  Pamela  and  Archie,  the  former 
muffled  in  a  large  pink  shawl,  and  both  of  them  prancing 
with  ill-restrained  impatience,  were  at  last  permitted  to 
dispatch  the  footman  in  search  of  a  cab. 

[143] 


CONSEQUENCES 


The  carriage,  in  the  opinion  of  Sir  Francis,  would  be 
amply  filled  by  himself,  his  two  daughters  and  Noel  Cardew, 
and  it  was  part  of  the  procedure  that  the  boys  should  be 
allowed  to  journey  to  the  theatre  by  themselves  in  a  han- 
som-cab. 

The  streets  were  snowy,  and  as  shafts  of  light  from  the 
street-lamps  fell  across  the  crowded  pavements  and  brilliant 
shop  windows,  still  displaying  the  Christmas  decorations  put 
up  a  month  ago,  something  of  the  old  childish  glamour  sur- 
rounding the  yearly  festival  came  upon  Alex. 

Pamela,  already  a  modern  child  in  the  lack  of  that  self- 
conscious  awe  of  their  father  that  had  kept  Alex  and  Bar- 
bara tongue-tied  in  his  presence,  nevertheless,  had  none  of 
the  modern  child's  blase  satiety  of  parties  and  entertainments 
of  all  kinds. 

The  Drury  Lane  pantomime  was  her  solitary  annual  ex- 
perience of  the  theatre,  and  she  was  proportionately  pre- 
pared to  enjoy  herself  to  the  full.  When  Sir  Francis,  with 
kind,  unhumorous  smile,  made  time-honoured  pretence  of 
having  forgotten  the  tickets,  Pamela  gave  Alex  a  shock 
by  her  cheerful  and  unhesitating  refusal  to  carry  on  the 
dutiful  tradition  of  her  elder  sisters  and  conform  tacitly 
to  the  jest  by  a  display  of  pretended  consternation. 

"  Oh,  no,  I  know  you  haven't  forgotten  them,"  Pamela 
cried  shrilly.  "  I  saw  you  look  at  them  just  before  we 
started.  Besides,  you  said  last  year  you'd  forgotten  them, 
and  you  had  them  in  your  pocket  all  the  time.  I  remember 
quite  well." 

She  began  to  bounce  up  and  down  on  the  seat  of  the 
carriage,  the  accordion-pleated  skirts  of  her  new  pink  frock 
billowing  round  her. 

"  Sit  still,"  said  Alex  repressively.  She  reflected  that 
she  herself  as  a  little  girl,  and  even  Barbara,  had  been  very 
much  nicer  than  was  Pamela. 

She  wondered  what  Noel  had  been  like  as  a  little  boy, 
and  looked  at  him  almost  involuntarily. 

His  glance  met  hers,  and  he  smiled  slightly.    The  re- 

[144] 


CHRISTMAS   PANTOMIME 

^ponse  touched  Alex  suddenly  and  acutely,  and  she  felt  a 
pang  of  remorse  for  the  intense  irritation  that  his  presence 
had  often  caused  her  lately. 

When  the  carriage  stopped  and  he  sprang  out  to  offer 
her  his  hand  in  descending,  she  gave  hers  to  him  with  a 
tiny  thrill,  and  her  fingers  lingered  for  an  instant  in  his, 
as  though  awaiting,  almost  in  spite  of  herself,  an  all-but- 
imperceptible  pressure  that  was  not  forthcoming. 

"  It's  begun,"  gasped  Pamela  in  an  agony  of  impatience 
in  the  foyer. 

Sir  Francis,  always  punctilious,  placed  Alex  in  the  right- 
hand  corner  of  the  box,  the  two  children  in  the  centre,  and 
then,  with  a  slight  smile,  offered  Noel  his  choice  of  the  re- 
maining chairs. 

Alex  was  conscious  of  a  throb  of  gratification,  per- 
haps more  attributable  to  vanity  than  to  anything  else, 
when  the  young  man  placed  himself  just  behind  her  own 
chair. 

Sir  Francis,  the  comparative  isolation  of  the  engaged 
couple  sufficiently  sanctioned  by  the  family  party  surround- 
ing them,  immediately  disposed  himself  behind  Cedric  at 
the  extreme  left  of  the  box. 

The  curtain  went  down  to  the  sound  of  applause  almost  as 
they  took  their  places,  and  the  lights  were  turned  up.  Alex 
looked  round  her. 

The  huge  house  was  everywhere  sprinkled  with  groups 
of  children  —  Eton  boys  in  broad,  white  collars  such  as 
Archie  wore,  little  girls  in  white  frocks  with  wide  pink  or 
blue  sashes  and  hair-ribbons. 

When  the  orchestra  began  a  medley  of  old-fashioned 
popular  airs.  Home,  sweet  Home,  Way  down  upon  the 
Swanee  River,  Bluebells  of  Scotland,  and  the  like,  Alex 
overwrought,  fell  an  easy  victim  to  the  cheap  appeal  to 
emotionalism. 

In  the  irrational,  passionate  desire  for  reassurance  that 
fell  upon  her,  she  leant  back  until  her  shoulder  almost 
touched  Noel's. 

[145] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  Look  at  all  those  children ! "  she  whispered,  hardly 
knowing  what  she  said. 

Noel  gazed  at  the  stalls  through  his  pince-nez. 

*'  The  place  is  crammed,"  he  said.  "  They  say  it's  the 
best  show  they've  ever  had.  Of  course,  I  haven't  seen  it 
yet,  but  my  own  idea  about  these  pantomimes  is  that  they 
don't  stick  enough  to  the  original  story.  Take  '  Cinderella,' 
now,  or  *  The  Babes  in  the  Wood.'  The  whole  thing  is 
simply  a  mass  of  interpolations  —  they  never  really  follow 
the  thread  of  one  idea  all  the  way  through.  I  can't  help 
thinking  it  would  be  much  better  if  they  did,  you  know. 
After  all,  a  pantomime  is  supposed  to  be  for  children,  isn't 
it?" 

"  Yes." 

Alex  wondered  what  reply  she  had  expected  from  him  to 
her  sudden  ejaculation,  that  the  actuality  should  bring  such 
a  sense  of  ironical  disappointment. 

She  leant  forward  again  as  the  curtain  went  up. 

She  was  still  child  enough  to  enjoy  a  pantomime  for  its 
own  sake,  but  the  swing  of  catchy  tunes  and  sentimental 
ballads  brought  with  them  something  more  than  the  easy 
heartache  to  which  youth  falls  so  ready  a  victim. 

As  the  crash  of  the  orchestra  heralded  a  big  scenic  effect 
of  dance  and  colour,  Noel  leant  a  little  towards  her  and 
began  to  speak. 

"Of  course,  it's  a  good  show  in  its  way.  Look,  Alex, 
you  can  see  the  man  manipulating  the  coloured  lights,  up 
there.  If  you  lean  right  back  into  this  corner  —  there,  up 
there." 

His  voice  was  full  of  interest  and  almost  of  eagerness. 
Alex  leant  back  as  he  suggested  and  gazed  obediently  up  at 
the  lime-light  operator,  although  she  felt  no  interest,  but 
rather  a  faint  distaste. 

"  It's  the  ingenuity  of  these  things  I  Hke,"  Noel's  voice  in 
her  ear  was  explaining.  "  Of  course,  the  dancing's  good, 
and  the  comic  bits,  though  I  don't  know  that  I  care  tremen- 
dously about  that.    They're  always  apt  to  be  rather  vulgar, 

[146] 


CHRISTMAS   PANTOMIME 

even  in  front  of  a  lot  of  ladies  and  children.  Pity,  that  is. 
But  take  the  songs,  now,  Alex;  wouldn't  you  think  that  it 
would  pay  some  one  to  write  really  good  libretto,  and  get  it 
taken  on  at  a  place  like  this  and  set  to  decent  music  ?  The 
tunes  are  good  enough,  but  it's  the  words  that  are  so  poor, 
I  always  think." 

Alex  listened  almost  without  hearing.  The  time  had  gone 
by  when  she  could  tell  herself,  with  vehement  attempt  at 
self-deception,  that  such  assertions  indicated  a  fundamental 
resemblance  between  her  tastes  and  those  of  Noel  Cardew. 

She  was  now  only  unreasonably  angry  and  disappointed 
because  of  her  baffled  desire  for  the  introduction,  however 
belated,  of  a  personal  element  into  their  intercourse. 

She  actually  felt  the  tears  rising  to  her  throat  as  the  eve- 
ning wore  on,  and  an  intolerable  fatigue  overcame  her. 

Sitting  upright  became  more  and  more  of  an  effort,  and 
the  box  seemed  narrow  and  over-full. 

The  instinct  of  self-pity  made  her  attempt  to  draw  Noel's 
sympathy  indirectly. 

"  Could  you  move  back  a  little  ? "  she  half  whispered. 
"  I  am  getting  rather  cramped." 

"  Are  you  ? "  returned  Noel  with  surprise,  as  he  pushed 
his  chair  back. 

But  he  did  not  appear  to  be  in  the  least  concerned  about 
the  matter.  She  looked  at  him  once  or  twice  and  he  met 
her  glance  absently.  She  knew  that  her  face  must  show 
signs  of  the  fatigue  that  she  felt,  but  she  knew  also  that  they 
would  not  be  perceptible  to  Noel. 

For  a  moment,  one  of  the  rebellious  gusts  of  misery  of 
her  stormy  childhood  shook  Alex. 

Why  —  why  should  there  be  no  one  to  care,  no  one  to 
whom  it  mattered  that  she  be  weary  or  out  of  spirits,  no  one 
to  perceive,  unprompted,  when  she  was  tired  ?  She  realized 
what  such  instinctive  protection  and  care  would  mean  to  her, 
and  the  almost  passionate  gratitude  with  which  she  could 
welcome  and  return  such  solicitude. 

But  with  Noel,  she  need  not  even  exercise  it.     Had  she 

[147] 


CONSEQUENCES 


loved  him  as  she  had  endeavoured  to  persuade  herself  that 
she  did,  instead  of  only  the  figure  of  Love  called  by  his  name, 
Alex  knew  that  Noel  would  have  passed  by  all  the  smaller 
manifestations  of  her  love  unheeding  and  uncomprehending. 

Her  gods  were  mocking  her  with  counterfeit  indeed. 

"  You  look  tired,  Alex,"  said  her  father's  courteously-dis- 
pleased voice. 

Alex  knew  that  on  the  rare  occasions  when  he  personally 
supervised  a  party  of  pleasure,  Sir  Francis  liked  the  occa- 
sion to  be  met  with  due  appreciation.  She  gave  a  forced 
smile  and  sat  rather  more  upright. 

"  To  be  sure,"  her  father  said  seriously,  "  it  is  a  pro- 
longed entertainment." 

But  Alex  knew  that  neither  Cedric,  Archie  nor  Pamela 
would  hear  of  any  curtailment  of  their  enjoyment,  and  Pa- 
mela was  already  urgently  whispering  that  they  must  stay 
for  the  clown  —  they  always  did. 

Sir  Francis  yielded  graciously,  evidently  well-pleased,  and 
they  remained  in  the  theatre  for  the  final  humours  of  the 
harlequinade. 

Snow  was  actually  falling  when  at  length  Sir  Francis 
Clare's  carriage  was  discovered,  and  Alex,  her  always  low 
vitality  at  its  lowest,  was  shivering  with  mingled  cold  and 
fatigue. 

"  Get  in,  children,"  commanded  their  father.  **  Noel,  my 
dear  boy,  we  can  give  you  a  lift,  but  pray  get  in  —  we  must 
not  keep  the  horses  standing.     What  a  terrible  night !  " 

Crouched  into  a  corner  of  the  carriage,  with  Pamela  half 
asleep  on  her  lap,  Alex  was  conscious  of  the  relief  of  the 
darkness  and  the  swift  motion  of  the  wheels. 

Noel  was  next  her,  and  in  the  sudden  sense  of  almost 
childish  terror  and  loneliness  that  possessed  her,  Alex  sought 
instinctive  comfort  and  reassurance  in  the  unavoidable  con- 
tact. She  leant  against  his  shoulder  in  the  shelter  of  the 
dark,  closely-packed  carriage,  and  was  sorry  when  Clevedon 
Square  was  reached  at  last,  and  she  found  herself  obliged  to 
descend. 

[148] 


CHRISTMAS  PANTOMIME 

"  Good-night  —  thanks  most  awfully,"  said  Noel  at  the 
door.  "  Good-night,  Alex.  I  say,  I'm  afraid  you  were 
frightfully  jammed  up  in  the  corner  there  —  Fm  so  sorry, 
but  I  simply  couldn't  move." 


[149] 


XIII 

Decision 

ON  making  up  her  mind  that  she  must  break  off  her 
engagement,  Alex,  unaware,  took  the  bravest  decision 
of  her  life. 

She  was  being  true  to  an  instinctive  standard,  in  which  she 
herself  only  believed  with  part  of  her  mind,  and  which  was 
absolutely  unknown  to  any  of  those  who  made  up  her  sur- 
roundings. 

She  hardly  knew,  however,  that  she  had  taken  any  resolu- 
tion in  her  many  wakeful  nights  and  discontented  days,  until 
the  moment  when  she  actually  put  it  into  execution.  She 
wrote  no  eloquent  letter,  entered  into  no  elaborate  explana- 
tion such  as  would  have  seemed  to  her,  after  the  manner  of 
her  generation,  theoretically  indispensable  to  the  situation. 

She  blurted  out  three  bald  words  which  struck  upon  her 
own  hearing  with  a  sense  of  extreme  shock  the  moment  they 
were  uttered. 

"  It's  no  use." 

Noel  looked  hard  at  her  for  a  moment,  and  then  did  not 
pretend  to  misunderstand  her  meaning. 

"  What,  us  being  engaged  ?  " 

His  intuitive  comprehension,  of  which  Alex  had  received 
so  little  proof  ever  before,  might  be  unflattering,  but  it  struck 
her  with  immense  relief. 

"  Yes." 

They  gazed  at  each  other  in  silence  for  a  few  moments, 
and  Alex  was  furious  with  herself  for  a  phrase  sprung  from 
nowhere  that  reiterated  itself  in  her  brain  as  she  looked  at 
Noel's  handsome,  inexpressive  face — ^'Fish-like  flaccid- 
ity.  .  .  /' 

And  again  and  again  ''  Fish-like  Haccidity." 

[150] 


DECISION 


They  were  in  the  drawing-room  at  Clevedon  Square,  and 
Noel,  as  though  seeking  to  relieve  his  obvious  embarrass- 
ment by  moving,  got  up  and  walked  across  the  room  to  the 
window. 

"  Of  course,  I've  felt  for  some  time  that  you  weren't  very 
happy  about  it  all,  and  naturally  —  if  you  feel  like  that  .  .  ." 

All  the  seething  disappointment  and  wounded  vanity  and 
aching  loneliness  that  had  tortured  her  since  the  very  first 
moments  of  her  engagement  to  Noel  Cardew,  rushed  back  on 
Alex,  but  she  sought  vainly  for  words  in  which  to  convey 
any  part  of  her  feelings  to  him. 

It  would  be  like  trying  to  explain  some  abstruse  principle 
of  science  to  a  little  child.  The  sense  of  the  utter  useless- 
ness  of  any  attempt  at  making  clear  to  him  the  reasons 
which  were  chaotic  even  to  herself,  paralysed  Alex'  utter- 
ance. 

"  I  don't  think  it's  any  use  going  on,"  she  repeated  feebly. 

'*  You're  perfectly  free,"  Noel  assured  her  scrupulously ; 
"  and  though,  of  course,  I  —  I  —  I  —  you  —  we  —  it  would 
be  — "     He  broke  off,  very  red. 

Alex  wished  vaguely  that  it  was  possible  for  them  to  talk 
it  all  out  quite  frankly  and  dispassionately  with  one  another, 
but  the  hard,  crystalline  detachment  of  the  generation  that 
was  to  follow  theirs,  had  as  yet  no  place  in  the  scheme  of 
things  known  to  Noel  and  Alex. 

They  made  awkward,  conventional  phrases  to  one  another. 

"  Naturally,"  the  boy  said  with  an  effort,  "  the  whole 
blame  must  rest  with  me." 

"  Oh,  no,  I'll  tell  father  and  mother  that  I  wanted  to  — 
to  — break  it  off." 

Alex  stopped,  conscious  that  she  could  not  think  of  any- 
thing else  to  say. 

But  rather  to  her  surprise,  it  appeared  that  Noel  had 
something  else  to  say. 

He  faced  her  with  hands  thrust  into  his  pockets,  his  hair 
and  little,  fair  moustache  and  his  brown  eyes  looking  very 
light  indeed  contrasted  with  his  flushed  face. 

[151] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  Of  course,  youVe  absolutely  free,  as  I  said,  only  I  must 
say,  Alex,  that  you're  making  rather  a  mistake.  Every  one 
was  awfully  pleased  about  it,  and  we've  known  each  other 
since  we  were  kids  —  since  you  were  a  kid,  at  any  rate  — 
and  a  broken  engagement  —  well,  of  course,  I  don't  want  to 
say  anything,  naturally,  but  it  does  put  a  girl  in  a  —  a  — 
well,  in  what's  called  rather  an  invidious  position.  Espe- 
cially when  it  isn't  as  though  there  was  any  particular  rea- 
son for  it." 

'*  The  principal  reason  — "  Alex  began  faintly,  not  alto- 
gether certain  of  what  it  was  that  she  was  about  to  say. 

'*  You  see,  I  always  thought  we  should  hit  it  off  together 
so  well.  We  always  did  as  kids  —  when  you  were  a  kid,  I 
mean,"  Noel  explained.  *'  We  always  seemed  to  like  the 
same  things,  and  have  a  good  deal  in  common." 

**  I  don't  think  that  you  liked  any  of  the  things  /  cared 
about  especially,"  Alex  said,  with  a  flash  of  spirit. 

"  What  does  that  matter  ?  "  Noel  demanded  naively,  "  so 
long  as  one  of  us  likes  the  things  that  the  other  does?  It 
would  be  exactly  the  same  thing." 

Alex  had  never  told  herself,  and  was  therefore  quite  un- 
able to  tell  Noel,  that  she  had  never  liked  anything  particu- 
larly, except  his  liking  for  her,  which  she  had  striven  almost 
frenziedly  to  gain  and  retain  by  means  of  an  artificially- 
stimulated  display  of  sympathetic  interest  in  his  enthusiasms. 

**  There's  another  thing  —  I  don't  know  whether  I  ought 
to  say  it  to  you,  quite  —  but,  of  course,  after  one's  — 
well,  married  —  there's  a  lot  more  one  has  in  common, 
naturally." 

*'  Yes,"  said  Alex  forlornly.     She  quite  believed  it. 

There  was  an  awkward  silence. 

"  Are  you  angry,  Noel  ?  " 

She  did  not  think  he  was  at  all  angry,  or  very  violently 
moved  in  any  way,  but  she  asked  the  question  from  an  in- 
stinctive desire  to  hear  from  him  any  expression  of  his  real 
feelings. 

He  replied  stiffly,  "  Not  at  all.    Of  course,  it's  much 

[152] 


DECISION 


better  that  you  should  say  all  this  in  time  ...  as  I  say,  IVe 
felt  for  some  time  that  you  weren't  particularly  cheerful. 
But  I  must  say,  Alex,  I'm  dashed  if  I  know  why." 

"  I  don't  know  why,  exactly  —  except  that  I  —  I  don't  feel 
as  if  we  —  really — cared  —  enough  for  one  another — " 

Alex  spoke  with  a  pause  between  each  word,  blushing 
scarlet,  as  though  it  really  cost  her  a  physical  effort  to  break 
through  the  barrier  of  reserve  that  she  had  been  taught  so 
relentlessly  should  always  be  erected  between  her  own  soul 
and  the  naked  truth  of  her  own  sensations  and  intimate 
convictions. 

Noel  blushed  too  and  Alex  felt  that  he  was  shocked, 
which  increased  her  own  self-contempt  almost  unbearably. 

"Naturally,  if  I  hadn't—"  he  left  a  blank  to  supply  the 
words,  "  I  shouldn't  have  asked  you  to  —  be  engaged  to 
me.  I  must  say,  Alex,  I  think  you're  rather  exacting,  you 
know." 

Alex  quivered  from  head  to  foot,  as  though  he  had  insulted 
her  most  brutally.  She,  who  had  shrunk,  with  a  genuine 
dread  that  had  surprised  herself,  from  Noel's  few,  shyly- 
uttered  endearments,  and  had  found  so  entire  a  lack  of  re- 
sponse in  herself  to  his  occasionally-attempted  displays  of 
tenderness,  to  be  accused  of  having  been  exacting ! 

She  did  not  for  an  instant  realize,  what  even  Noel  faintly 
surmised,  that  she  had  indeed  been  exacting,  of  a  romantic 
fervour  which  she  was  as  incapable  of  inspiring  as  he  of  be- 
stowing ;  from  which,  had  it  existed,  the  outward  expressions 
of  love  would  have  leapt  spontaneously,  supremely  appro- 
priate, and  necessary  to  them  both. 

In  the  mental  chaos  and  muddle  of  their  extreme  youth, 
they  looked  at  one  another  confused  and  bewildered,  almost 
like  two  children  suddenly  conscious  of  the  magnitude  of 
their  own  naughtiness. 

Noel  said,  rather  proudly,  as  though  one  of  the  children 
suddenly  tried  to  appear  grown-up : 

"  You  must  allow  me  to  undertake  the  distressing  task 
of  —  breaking  it  to  —  them." 

[153] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


Alex  almost  shuddered,  so  acute  was  her  own  apprehen- 
sion of  the  disclosure  to  her  father  and  mother. 

*'  I  shall  tell  mother  at  once,"  she  said,  lacking  the  courage 
even  to  mention  Sir  Francis. 

It  was  typical  of  the  whole  time  and  circumstances  of  their 
brief  engagement  that  both  Noel,  and,  in  a  lesser  degree, 
Alex,  had  looked  upon  the  relation  into  which  they  had 
entered  as  one  in  which  their  parents  held  the  stakes  and 
were  of  primary  concern.  They  themselves  were  only  pup- 
pets for  whom  strings  were  pulled,  so  as  to  cause  certain 
vibrations  and  reactions  over  which  they  had  no  personal 
control. 

This  belief,  unformulated  by  either,  and  entirely  charac- 
teristic of  a  late  Victorian  generation,  was,  perhaps,  that 
which  they  held  most  in  common. 

Alex  even  wondered  whether  she  ought  to  wait  and  speak 
to  Lady  Isabel  before  taking  the  next  step  which  she  had  in 
mind,  but  her  desire  to  try  and  raise  their  trivial,  shame- 
faced parting  to  a  higher  level  by  one  dramatic  touch,  was 
too  strong  for  her. 

She  slowly  pulled  the  diamond  engagement-ring  off  her 
finger,  and  handed  it  to  him. 

"  Oh,  I  say,"  stammered  Noel.  He  looked  miserably  un- 
decided, and  she  knew  that  he  was  wondering  whether  he 
could  not  ask  her  to  keep  it  just  the  same. 

But  in  the  end  he  slipped  it  into  his  pocket,  after  balancing 
it  undecidedly  for  a  moment  in  the  palm  of  his  hand. 

She  sat  on  the  sofa,  her  left  hand  feeling  strangely  bare, 
unweighted  by  the  heavy,  glittering  hoop,  and  Noel  looked 
out  of  the  window. 

"  I  think  I  shall  go  abroad,"  he  announced  suddenly,  and 
with  mingled  relief  and  mortification,  Alex  detected  the 
sound  of  satisfaction  latent  in  his  voice.  She  felt  that  he 
thought  himself  to  be  doing  the  proper  thing  in  the  circum- 
stances, and  the  sting  inflicted  on  her  pride  by  his  acquies- 
cence in  their  parting,  though  she  had  expected  nothing  else, 

[154] 


DECISION 


gave  her  the  sudden  impulse  necessary  to  rise  and  cross  the 
room  until  she  stood  beside  him  at  the  window. 

"  Please  forgive  me,  Noel." 

"  Oh,  there's  nothing  to  forgive,"  he  returned  hastily. 
"Of  course,  if  you  feel  like  that,  it's  all  over." 

He  looked  at  her  steadily  and  Alex  felt  the  suspicion  rush 
over  her  that  he  was  trying  obliquely  to  convey  a  warning 
to  her  that  if  she  dismissed  him  now,  it  would  be  of  no  use 
to  recall  him  later. 

Alex  felt  passionately  that  in  the  depths  of  his  stubborn 
vanity  lay  the  truest  presentment  of  himself  that  Noel  would 
ever  show  her.  If  there  was  another  side  to  his  personality 
—  and  she  was  dimly  willing  to  believe  it  for  all  her  utter 
ignorance  of  him  —  the  power  to  call  it  forth  did  not  dwell 
in  her. 

Her  momentary  feeling  of  anger  gave  way  to  humiliation, 
and  she  half  held  out  her  hand. 

**  Good-bye,  Noel,"  she  said  humbly. 

As  though  to  atone  for  the  lack  of  feeling  in  his  tone, 
Noel  wrung  her  hand  until  it  hurt  her,  as  he  replied  auto- 
matically :  "  Good-bye,  Alex." 

"  I  suppose  we  shall  never  meet  again,"  thought  Alex, 
with  all  the  finality  of  youth,  and  felt  dazed  as  she  saw  him 
open  the  door. 

Mechanically,  she  rang  the  bell  in  order  that  the  servants 
downstairs  might  know  that  he  was  leaving,  and  come  into 
the  hall  to  find  his  hat  and  stick  and  to  open  the  door  for 
him. 

Lady  Isabel  had  instilled  into  Alex  that  it  was  part  of  her 
responsibility  in  grown-up  life  to  ring  the  bell  for  departing 
guests,  as  unostentatiously  as  possible,  at  just  the  right  mo- 
ment, and  every  time  that  she  remembered  to  do  it,  she 
always  felt  rather  proud  of  herself. 

This  time  she  thought : 

"  It's  the  last  time  Noel  will  ever  be  in  this  room  with  me. 
He  is  going  right  out  of  my  life." 

[155] 


CONSEQUENCES 


She  was  quite  unconsciously  trying  to  awaken  in  herself 
an  anguish  of  regret  that  might  yet  justify  her  to  herself  in 
recalling  her  lover. 

If  he  turns  round  at  the  door  and  says,  "  Alex ! " 
She  tried  to  cheat  herself  with  a  hope  that  was  yet  not  a 
hope. 

Noel  turned  at  the  door. 

In  a  solemn,  magnanimous  voice  he  said : 

**  Alex !  I  don't  want  you  to  feel  —  ever  —  that  you  need 
reproach  yourself,  whatever  any  one  may  say.  Remember 
that,  if " —  he  suddenly  looked  like  a  rather  frightened 
little  boy  — "  if  there's  a  great  fuss." 

Then  the  door  closed  very  quietly  behind  him,  and  Alex 
heard  him  go  downstairs  slowly. 

It  seemed  to  her  that  Noel's  farewell  had  plumbed  the 
final  depth  of  his  inadequacy. 

Presently  she  sank  into  an  armchair  before  the  fire,  and 
tried  to  visualize  the  effects  of  her  own  action. 

She  was  principally  conscious  of  a  certain  amazement,  that 
a  step  which  seemed  likely  to  have  such  far-reaching  conse- 
quences should  have  been  so  largely  the  result  of  sudden 
impulse.  She  had  not  thought  the  night  before  of  breaking 
off  her  engagement.  It  had  all  happened  very  quickly  in  a 
few  minutes,  when  the  sense  of  tension  which  had  hung 
round  her  intercourse  with  Noel  had  suddenly  seemed  to 
reach  an  unbearable  pitch,  so  that  something  had  snapped. 
Was  this  how  Important  Things  happened  to  one  through 
life? 

Alex  felt  that  she  could  not  believe  it. 

But  a  broken  engagement  —  could  there  be  anything  more 
important,  more  desperate  ?  Alex  felt  with  melancholy  sat- 
isfaction that  at  least  it  was  real  life,  as  she  had  always 
imagined  it,  full  of  drama  and  tragedy.  With,  of  course,  a 
glory  of  happiness  as  final  climax,  that  would  make  up  for 
everything.  .  .  .  More  physically  tired  than  she  knew,  Alex 
abandoned  herself  dreamily  to  the  old,  idle  visions  of  the 
wonderful,  perfect  love  that  should  come  to  crown  her  life. 

[156] 


DECISION 


There  was  no  faint,  latent  sense  of  disloyalty  to  Noel  now, 
in  returning  to  her  old  dreams,  that  had  been  hers  in  one 
form  or  another  ever  since  her  childish  ideal  of  a  perfect 
friend  who  would  always  understand,  and  yet  love  one  just 
the  same. 

It  was  with  a  violent  start  that  Alex  came  back  to  reality 
again.  She  had  dismissed  Noel  Cardew,  had  given  him 
back  his  beautiful  diamond  engagement-ring,  and  now  she 
would  have  to  tell  her  father  and  mother,  with  no  better 
reason  to  adduce  than  her  own  caprice. 

She  felt  sick  with  fright. 

She  remembered  Sir  Francis's  silent  but  unmistakable 
pride  and  pleasure  in  his  engaged  daughter,  and  Lady  Isa- 
bel's additional  display  of  affection,  and  even  of  deference 
to  Alex'  taste  in  choosing  her  frocks  and  hats,  and  her  own 
sense  of  having  at  last  atoned  to  them  both  for  her  unsatis- 
factory childhood  and  lack  of  any  conspicuous  social  success, 
such  as  they  had  coveted  for  her. 

Alex,  cowering  in  her  chair  now,  wondered  how  she  could 
face  them.  Her  only  shred  of  comfort  lay  in  the  remem- 
brance that  Lady  Isabel  had  said  to  her : 

"  My  darlin',  I'm  so  thankful  to  know  you  are  marrying 
for  love." 

Alex,  in  bitter  bewilderment,  remembered  those  words 
again  and  again  in  the  days  which  followed. 

No  one  reproached  her,  she  heard  hardly  a  word  of 
blame,  and  the  most  severe  censure  spoken  to  her  was  in 
her  mother's  soft  voice,  far  more  distressed  than  angry. 

"  But,  Alex,  do  you  know  what  people  say,  about  a  girl 
who's  behaved  as  you  have?  That  she's  a  vulgar  jilt, 
neither  more  nor  less.  To  throw  over  a  young  man  after 
being  engaged  to  him  for  four  weeks,  with  no  reason  except 
a  capricious  fit.  .  .  .  Oh,  my  darling,  why  couldn't  you  have 
asked  me  first  ?  To  go  and  give  him  back  that  lovely  ring, 
and  hurt  and  insult  him.  ...  Of  course,  he'll  never  come 
back.  Your  father  says  how  well  he's  behaved,  poor  boy. 
.  .  .  Alex,  Alex,  what  shall  I  do  with  you  ?  " 

[157] 


CONSEQUENCES 


Tears  were  running  down  her  pretty  face,  so  slightly 
lined  even  now. 

Alex  cried  too,  from  pity  for  her  mother  and  wretched, 
undefined  remorse,  and  a  growing  conviction  that  in  acting 
on  her  own  distorted  impulse  she  had  once  more  involved 
herself,  and,  far  worse,  others,  in  far-reaching  and  disas- 
trous consequences. 

"  Thank  Heaven,  we  hadn't  announced  the  engagement, 
but,  of  course,  it  will  all  get  about  —  things  always  do.  And 
there's  nothing  worse  for  a  girl  than  to  get  that  sort  of  repu- 
tation, especially  when  she's  not  —  not  tremendously  sought 
after,  or  pretty  or  anything." 

Lady  Isabel  had  never  before  come  so  near  to  an  avowal 
that  her  eldest  daughter's  career  had  proved  a  disappoint- 
ment to  her,  and  Alex  in  the  admission,  rightly  gauged  the 
extent  of  her  mother's  dismay. 

"Why  did  you  do  it,  Alex?" 

Alex  tried  haltingly  to  explain,  but  she  could  only  say : 

"I  —  I  felt  I  didn't  care  for  him  enough." 

"  But  you  hadn't  had  time  to  find  out !  You  accepted  him 
when  he  proposed,  so  you  must  have  been  quite  ready  to 
like  him  then,  and  you'd  only  been  engaged  for  four  weeks. 
How  could  you  tell  —  a  little  thing  like  you  ?  "  wailed  Lady 
Isabel. 

"  Oh,  Alex,  if  you'd  only  come  to  me  about  it  first  —  I 
could  have  explained  it  all  to  you  —  girls  often  get  fancies 
about  being  in  love." 

"  I  thought  you  wanted  me  to  marry  for  love.  You  said 
so,"  sobbed  Alex. 

"Of  course,  I  don't  want  you  to  marry  without  it.  But 
it's  the  love  that  comes  after  marriage  that  really  counts  — 
and  a  boy  you'd  known  all  your  life,  practically  —  that  we 
all  liked  —  you  could  have  been  ideally  happy,  Alex."  Lady 
Isabel  looked  at  her  almost  resentfully. 

"  I  don't  know  what  will  happen  to  you,  my  darling,  I 
don't  indeed.  I  sometimes  think  you  are  just  as  headstrong 
and  exaggerated  as  when  you  were  a  little  girl.    And,  Alex, 

[158] 


DECISION 


I  don't  like  even  to  say  such  a  thing  to  you  —  but  —  there's 
never  been  any  one  but  Noel,  and  I'm  afraid  this  isn't  the 
sort  of  thing  that  makes  any  man.  .  .  .  Nothing  puts  them 
off  more  —  and  no  wonder." 

Alex  thought  momentarily  of  Queenie,  but  she  knew  that 
was  different.  In  the  supreme  object  of  woman,  to  attract, 
Queenie  stood  in  a  class  apart.  Nothing  that  Queenie  could 
ever  do  would  ever  rob  her  of  the  devotion  that  was  hers, 
wherever  she  chose  to  claim  it,  by  mysterious  right  of  attrac- 
tion. 

From  her  father,  Alex  heard  very  little.  She  was  left,  in 
her  abnormal  sensitiveness,  to  measure  his  disappointment 
and  mortification  by  his  very  silence. 

Feeling  again  like  the  naughty  little  girl  who  had  been 
responsible  for  Barbara's  fall  from  the  balusters,  and  had 
been  sent  to  Sir  Francis  for  sentence,  she  listened,  in  a 
silence  that  was  broken  only  by  the  sobs  that  she  could 
hardly  control,  to  his  few,  measured  utterances. 

'*  You  are  old  enough  to  know  your  own  mind."  Sir 
Francis  paused,  swinging  his  glasses  lightly  to  and  fro  in 
his  hand.  Then  he  deliberately  put  them  across  his  nose 
and  looked  at  her. 

"  At  least,"  he  added  carefully,  "  I  suppose  you  are. 
Your  mother  tells  me  that  you  appear  to  have  been  —  er  — 
rather  suddenly  overwhelmed  by  a  fear  of  marrying  without 
love.  I  don't  wish  to  say,  Alex,  that  such  a  sentiment  was 
not  more  or  less  proper  and  natural,  but  to  act  upon  it  so 
hastily,  and  with  such  a  heartless  lack  of  consideration,  ap- 
pears to  me  to  be  the  action,  my  dear  child  " —  Sir  Francis 
paused,  and  then  added  calmly  — "  of  a  fool.  The  word  is 
not  a  pretty  one,  but  I  prefer  it  to  the  only  other  alternative 
that  I  can  see,  for  describing  your  conduct." 

*'  Have  you  anything  to  say,  my  dear  ?  " 

Alex  had  nothing  to  say,  and  would,  in  any  case,  have  been 
rendered  by  this  time  powerless  of  saying  it.  Sir  Francis 
looked  at  her  with  the  same  grief  and  mortification  on  his 
handsome,  severe  face  that  had  been  there  eight  years  be- 

[159] 


CONSEQUENCES 


fore  when  the  nursery  termagant,  sobbing  and  terrified, 
had  stood  before  him  in  her  short  frock  and  pinafore. 

"  You  could  have  asked  advice,"  he  said  gently.  "  You 
have  parents  whose  only  wish  is  to  see  you  happy.  Why 
did  you  not  go  to  your  mother  ?  " 

Alex  tried  to  say,  "  Because  — "  but  found  that  the  only 
reason  which  presented  itself  to  her  mind  was  her  own 
conviction  that  Lady  Isabel  would  not  have  understood,  and 
she  dared  not  speak  it  aloud. 

The  Claire  axiom,  as  that  of  thousands  of  their  class  and 
generation,  was  that  parents  by  Divine  right  knew  more 
than  their  children  could  ever  hope  to  learn,  and  that  noth- 
ing within  the  ken  of  these  could  ever  prove  beyond  their 
comprehension. 

Sir  Francis  shook  his  head  sadly. 

"  I  will  tell  you,  my  poor  child,  since  you  will  not  answer 
me,  why  you  did  not  seek  your  mother's  advice.  It  was 
because  you  are  weakly  impulsive,  and  by  one  act  of  im- 
petuous folly  will  lay  up  for  yourself  years  of  unavailing 
remorse  and  regret." 

Alex  recognized  with  something  like  terror  the  truth  of 
his  description.     Weakly  impulsive. 

She  had  blindly  followed  an  instinct,  and,  as  usual,  all  her 
world  had  blamed  her  and  she  had  found  herself  faced  by 
consequences  that  appalled  her. 

Why  must  one  always  involve  others  ? 

She  ceased  to  see  clearly  that  marriage  with  Noel  Cardew 
would  have  meant  misery,  and  blindly  accepted  the  vision 
thrust  upon  her  by  her  surroundings.  She  had  hurt  and 
disappointed  and  shamed  them,  and  they  could  only  see  her 
action  as  a  cruel,  capricious  impulse. 

Alex,  weakly  impulsive,  as  Sir  Francis  had  said,  and  sick 
with  misery  at  their  unspoken  blame  and  silent  disappoint- 
ment, presently  lost  her  always  feeble  hold  of  her  own  con- 
victions, and  saw  with  their  eyes. 


[i6o] 


XIV 

Barbara  ' 

ALEX  became  more  and  more  unhappy. 
It  was  evident  that  Lady  Isabel  felt  hardly  any 
pleasure  now  in  taking  her  daughter  about  with  her, 
and  the  consciousness  of  not  being  approved  rendered  Alex 
more  self-conscious  and  less  sure  of  herself  than  ever. 

It  was  inevitable  that  one  or  two  of  her  mother's  more 
intimate  friends  should  know  of  her  affair  with  Noel  Car- 
dew,  and  it  did  not  need  Lady  Isabel's  occasional  sorrowful 
comments  to  persuade  Alex  that  they  took  the  same  view  of 
her  conduct  as  did  her  parents.  The  sense  of  being  despised 
overwhelmed  her,  and  she  fretted  secretly  and  lost  some  of 
her  colour,  and  held  herself  worse  than  ever  from  the  lassi- 
tude that  overwhelmed  her  physically  whenever  she  was 
bored  or  unhappy. 

Towards  Easter  Lady  Isabel  sent  for  Barbara  to  come 
home  from  Neuilly. 

Alex  revived  a  little  at  the  idea  of  having  Barbara  at 
Clevedon  Square  again. 

She  thought  it  would  impress  her  younger,  still  school- 
girl sister  to  see  her  as  a  fully-emancipated  grown-up  person, 
and  she  could  not  help  hoping  that  Barbara,  promoted  to 
being  a  confidante,  would  thrill  at  the  first-hand  story  of  a 
real  love  affair  and  a  broken  engagement.  Alex  was  pre- 
pared to  attribute  to  Noel  a  romantic  despair  that  had  not 
been  his,  at  her  ruthless  dismissal  of  him,  in  order  to  over- 
awe little,  seventeen-year-old  Barbara. 

But  behold  Barbara,  after  those  months  spent  in  the 
household  of  the  Marquise  de  Metrancourt  de  la  Haute^- 
f  euille ! 

No  need  to  tell  her  to  keep  her  shoulders  back. 

[i6i] 


CONSEQUENCES 


She  was  not  quite  so  tall  as  Alex,  but  her  slim  figure  was 
exquisitely  upright.  Encased  in  French  stays  that  made  even 
Lady  Isabel  gasp,  she  wore,  with  an  air,  astonishing  French 
clothes  that  swung  gracefully  round  her  as  she  moved,  and 
her  hair,  which  had  developed  a  surprising  ripple,  was  gath- 
ered up  at  the  back  of  her  head  with  a  huge,  outstanding 
bow  of  smartly-tied  ribbon  that  seemed  to  form  a  back- 
ground for  the  pale,  pointed  little  face,  that  was  still  Bar- 
bara's, but  had  somehow  acquired  an  elusive  charm  that 
actually  seemed  more  distinguished  than  ordinary,  healthy 
English  prettiness. 

And  the  self-assurance  of  the  child! 

Alex  was  disgusted  at  the  ease  with  which  Barbara, 
hitherto  shy  and  tongue-tied  in  the  presence  of  her  par- 
ents, chattered  lightly  to  them  on  the  evening  of  her  re- 
turn, and  offered  —  actually  offered  unasked!  —  to  sing 
them  some  of  her  new  songs.  "  New  songs  "  indeed,  when 
it  was  only  a  year  ago  that  she  had  written  to  ask  whether 
she  might  have  a  few  singing  lessons  with  the  Marquise's 
daughter!  But  neither  Sir  Francis  nor  Lady  Isabel  re- 
buked her  temerity,  and  they  even  exchanged  amused,  ap- 
proving glances  when  the  slim,  upright  figure  moved  lightly 
across  the  room  to  the  big  grand  piano. 

Alex,  in  her  pink  evening  dress,  with  her  elaborately- 
coiled  hair,  felt  infinitely  childish  and  awkward  as  she 
watched  Barbara  slip  off  a  new  gold  bangle  from  her  little 
white,  rounded  wrist,  and  strike  a  couple  of  chords  with 
perfect  self-assurance. 

She  was  going  to  play  without  music!  It  was  absurd; 
Barbara  had  never  been  musical. 

Certainly  the  voice  in  which  she  sang  a  couple  of  little 
French  ballades,  was  a  very  tiny  one,  but  there  was  a  tune- 
fulness, above  all,  a  vivacity,  about  her  whole  performance 
which  caused  even  Sir  Francis  to  break  into  unwonted 
applause  at  the  finish.  Alex  applauded  too,  principally  from 
the  desire  to  prove  to  herself  that  it  would  be  impossible  for 
her  ever  to  feel  jealous  of  little  Barbara. 

[162] 


BARBARA 


When  they  had  sent  her  to  bed,  Lady  Isabel  laughed  with 
more  animation  than  she  often  displayed. 

"  How  the  child  has  developed !  " 

"  Charming,  charming !  "  said  Sir  Francis.  "  We  must 
show  her  something  of  the  world,  I  think,  even  if  she  is 
rather  young." 

But  it  soon  became  evident,  to  Alex,  at  least,  that  Barbara 
had  not  been  without  glimpses  of  the  world,  even  at  Neuilly. 
She  listened  with  interest,  but  very  coolly,  to  Alex'  at- 
tempted confidences,  and  finally  said,  "  Well,  I  can't  imagine 
how  you  could  have  borne  to  give  up  the  diamond  ring,  and 
it  would  have  been  fun  to  get  married  and  have  a  trousseau 
and  a  house  of  your  own.  But  I  don't  think  Noel  would 
make  much  of  a  husband." 

The  calm  disparagement  in  her  tone  annoyed  Alex.  It 
seemed  to  rob  her  solitary  conquest  of  any  lingering  trace  of 
glory. 

"  I  don't  think  you  know  very  much  about  it,"  she  said 
rather  scathingly.  "  You  haven't  met  any  men  at  all,  natu- 
rally, so  how  can  you  judge  ?  " 

Barbara  laughed. 

Something  of  security  that  would  not  even  take  the  trouble 
to  dispute  the  point,  pierced  through  that  cool,  self-confident 
little  laugh  of  hers. 

Later  on,  she  told  Alex,  with  rather  overdone  matter-of- 
faotness,  that  a  young  Frenchman,  a  cousin  of  Helene  de  la 
Hautefeuille,  had  fallen  very  much  in  love  with  her  at 
Neuilly. 

Alex  at  first  pretended  not  to  believe  her,  although  she 
felt  an  uncomfortable  inward  certainty  that  Barbara  would 
never  waste  words  on  an  idle  boast  that  could  not  be  sub- 
stantiated. 

"You  need  not  believe  me  if  you  don't  want  to,"  said 
Barbara  indiflFerently. 

"  But  how  could  you  know?  I  thought  the  Marquise  was 
so  particular  ?  " 

"  So  she  was.    They  all  are,  in  France,  with  jeufies  filles, 

[163] 


CONSEQUENCES 


It's  ridiculous.  But,  of  course,  as  Helene  was  his  cousin, 
they  weren't  quite  so  strict,  and  he  used  to  give  her  notes 
and  things  for  me." 

"Barbara!" 

"  You  needn't  be  so  shocked,  Alex.  Of  course,  /  never 
wrote  to  him  —  that  would  have  been  too  stupid;  but  he's 
very  nice,  and  simply  madly  in  love  with  me.  Helene  said 
he  always  admired  le  type  Anglais,  and  that  I  was  his  ideal." 

Alex  was  thoroughly  angered  at  the  complacency  in  Bar- 
bara's voice. 

"  You  and  Helene  are  two  silly,  vulgar,  little  schoolgirls. 
I  didn't  think  you  could  be  so  —  so  common,  Barbara. 
What  on  earth  would  father  and  mother  say  ?  " 

*'  I  daresay  they  wouldn't  mind  so  very  much,"  said  Bar- 
bara calmly,  "  so  long  as  they  didn't  know  about  the  notes 
and  our  having  met  once  or  twice  in  the  garden." 

"  I  don't  believe  it !  "  exclaimed  Alex.  "  You  think  it 
sounds  grown-up,  and  so  you're  exaggerating  the  whole 
thing." 

Barbara  looked  at  her  sister,  with  her  eyebrows  cocked 
in  a  provoking,  conceited  sort  of  way,  not  angrily,  but  rather 
contemptuously. 

"  Really,  Alex,  to  hear  you  make  such  a  fuss  about  it,  any 
one  would  think  that  you'd  never  set  eyes  on  a  man.  Of 
course,  that  sort  of  thing  happens  as  soon  as  one  begins  to 
get  grown-up.     It's  part  of  the  fun." 

"  You  know  mother  would  say  it  was  vulgar." 

It  was  almost  a  relief  to  see  one  of  Barbara's  rare  blushes 
at  the  word. 

"  1  don't  see  why  it  should  be  more  vulgar  than  you  and 
Noel." 

"How  can  you  be  so  ridiculous!  Of  course,  that  was 
quite  different.  We  were  both  grown-up,  and  properly  en- 
gaged and  everything." 

"  Alex,"  said  Barbara  suddenly,  "  when  you  were  engaged, 
did  he  ever  kiss  you  ?  " 

[164] 


BARBARA 


Alex  turned  nearly  as  scarlet  as  her  sister  had  been  a 
moment  before. 

"  Shut  up !  "  she  said  savagely.  A  thought  struck  her. 
"  You  don't  mean  to  say  you  ever  let  that  beastly  French 
boy  try  to  do  anything  like  that  ?  "  she  demanded. 

"  No,  no,"  said  Barbara  hastily ;  "  of  course  not.  But 
he's  not  such  a  boy  as  all  that,  you  know.  He  has  a  mous- 
tache, and  he's  doing  his  service  militaire  now.  Otherwise," 
said  Barbara  calmly,  "  I  daresay  he  would  have  followed  me 
to  England." 

"  You  conceited  little  idiot !  He  must  have  been  laughing 
at  you." 

Barbara  shrugged  her  shoulders,  with  a  gesture  that  had 
certainly  not  been  acquired  in  Clevedon  Square. 

"  You'll  see  for  yourself  presently,"  she  remarked.  "  He's 
going  to  get  his  permission  next  month,  and  he's  coming  to 
London." 

"  You  don't  suppose  you'll  be  able  to  go  sneaking  about 
writing  notes  and  meeting  him  in  corners  here,  do  you  ?  " 
cried  Alex,  horrified. 

Barbara  looked  at  her  disdainfully,  and  gave  deft  little 
pulls  and  pats  to  the  bow  on  her  hair,  so  that  it  stood  out 
more  than  ever. 

"  What  on  earth  do  you  take  me  for,  Alex  ?  Of  course,  I 
know  as  well  as  you  do  that  that  sort  of  thing  can't  be 
done  in  London.  It  will  all  be  perfectly  proper,"  said  Bar- 
bara superbly.     "  I  have  given  him  permission  to  call  here." 

Alex  remained  speechless. 

She  was  quite  unable  to  share  in  the  tolerant  amusement 
with  which  her  parents  apparently  viewed  the  astonishing 
emancipation  of  Barbara,  although  it  was  true  that  Barbara 
still  retained  a  sufficient  sense  of  decorum  to  describe  M. 
Achille  de  Villef  ranche  to  them  merely  as  "  a  cousin  of 
Helene's,  who  would  like  to  come  and  call  when  he  is  in 
London." 

Lady  Isabel  acceded  to  the  proposed  visit  with  gracious 

[165] 


CONSEQUENCES 


amusement,  and  Alex  wondered  jealously  why  her  own  at- 
tempts to  prove  grown-up  and  like  other  girls  never  seemed 
to  succeed  as  did  Barbara's  preposterous,  demurely-spoken 
pretensions  —  until  she  remembered  with  a  pang  that,  after 
all,  she  had  never  had  to  ask  whether  admiring  strangers 
might  call  upon  her.  She  knew  instinctively  that  however 
much  Lady  Isabel  might  exact  in  the  way  of  elaborate 
chaperonage,  she  would  secretly  have  welcomed  any  such 
proof  of  her  daughter's  attraction  for  members  of  the  oppo- 
site sex. 

One  day  Barbara,  more  boastful  or  less  secretive  than 
usual,  showed  Alex  one  of  Achille^s  notes,  written  to  her 
on  the  day  that  she  had  left  Neuilly. 

Alex  deciphered  the  pointed  writing  with  some  difficulty, 
and  then  turned  first  hot  and  then  cold,  as  she  remembered 
the  few  letters  she  had  ever  received  from  Noel  Cardew, 
written  during  the  period  of  their  lawful,  sanctioned  engage- 
ment, when  she  had  so  fiercely  told  herself  that,  of  course,  a 
man  was  never  romantic  on  paper,  and  that  his  very  reti- 
cence only  proved  the  depth  of  his  feeling. 

And  all  that  time  Barbara,  utterly  cold  and  merely  super- 
ciliously amused,  had  been  the  recipient  of  this  Latin  hyper- 
bole, these  impassioned  poetical  flights: 

"Ma  petite  rose  blanche  anglaise 
Ma  douce  Sainte  Barbe." 

(Good  Heavens !  he  had  never  seen  Barbara  in  one  of  her 
cold  furies,  when  she  would  sulk  in  perfect  silence  for  three 
days  on  end!)  And  finally,  with  humble  pleadings  that  he 
might  be  forgiven  for  such  a  debordement,  Achille  apostro- 
phized her  as  '' ma  mignonne  adorer" 

Alex  could  hardly  believe  that  it  was  really  Barbara  who 
had  inspired  these  romantic  ebullitions. 

"  How  did  you  answer  him  ?  "  she  asked  breathlessly. 

"  I  didn't  answer  at  all,"  Barbara  coolly  replied.  "  You 
don't  suppose  I  was  so  silly  as  that,  do  you  ?    Why,  girls  get 

[i66] 


BARBARA 


into  the  most  awful  difficulties  by  writing  letters  and  signing 
their  names,  and  then  the  man  won't  let  them  have  the  letters 
back  afterwards.  Achille  has  never  had  one  single  scrap 
of  writing  from  me." 

Alex  felt  as  much  rebuked  as  angered  by  this  display  of 
worldly  wisdom.  She  knew,  and  was  sure  that  Barbara, 
pluming  herself  over  her  own  shrewdness,  knew  also,  that 
had  she  herself  been  able  to  provoke  similar  protestations, 
no  considerations  of  prudence  or  discretion  would  have  re- 
strained the  ardour  of  her  response. 

During  the  Easter  holidays  Barbara  remained  in  the 
schoolroom,  sometimes  playing  with  Archie  and  Pamela,  but 
generally  engaged  on  one  of  the  many  forms  of  embroidery 
which  she  appeared  to  have  learned  at  Neuilly,  or  diligently 
practising  her  French  songs  at  the  schoolroom  piano. 

She  did  not  appear  to  be  at  all  envious  of  Alex'  grown-up 
privileges,  for  which  Alex  felt  rather  wonderingly  grateful 
to  her,  until  one  day  when  she  was  out  driving  with  Lady 
Isabel,  when  a  sudden  enlightenment  fell  upon  her. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  this  ambition  of  little  Barbara's?  " 
her  mother  asked  her,  with  a  trace  of  hesitation. 

"  What?  "  asked  Alex  stupidly. 

"  Why,  this  frantic  wish  of  hers  to  be  presented  next  May 
and  allowed  to  make  her  debut.  She  will  be  seventeen,  after 
all,  and  she  seems  to  have  set  her  heart  on  it." 

**  Barbara !  She  wants  to  be  presented  and  come  out  in 
May!  Why,  it's  nearly  April  now,  mother.  That  would 
mean  in  another  six  weeks." 

Alex  was  stupefied. 

"  Hasn't  she  said  anything  to  you  ? "  said  Lady  Isabel,  with 
a  sort  of  vague,  unperceiving  wonder.  **  Funny  little  thing! 
I  thought  she  would  have  been  sure  to  have  talked  it  all 
over  with  you.  She's  been  beggin'  and  implorin'  us  ever 
since  she  got  back  from  Neuilly,  and  your  father  is  half 
inclined  to  say  she  may." 

How  like  Barbara!  Begging  and  imploring  them  to  let 
her  be  presented  next  May,  and  all  the  time  saying  nothing 

[167] 


CONSEQUENCES 


at  all  to  Alex,  and  slyly  pretending  to  care  nothing  for  com- 
ing out,  and  listening  with  deceptive  quiet  to  Alex'  little 
occasional  speeches  made  to  mark  the  difference  between 
twenty  and  seventeen.  No  doubt  Barbara  knew  very  well 
that  she  would  get  her  own  way  by  dint  of  ardent  pleading, 
and  did  not  want  the  effect  of  her  arguments  and  reasonable- 
sounding  representations  to  be  spoilt  by  Alex'  vigorous 
protest. 

For,  of  course,  Alex  was  indignant.  Why  should  Bar- 
bara come  out  when  she  was  barely  seventeen,  when  her 
sister  had  had  to  wait  until  the  orthodox  eighteen? 

Alex  might  not  value  her  privileges  highly,  but  she  was 
far  from  wishing  Barbara  to  share  them. 

In  the  depths  of  her  soul  was  a  lurking  consciousness 
that  neither  did  she  want  sharp-eyed,  critical  Barbara  to  see 
how  poor  and  dull  a  figure  her  sister  cut,  after  the  imag- 
inary triumphs  of  which  she  had  so  often  boasted. 

Lady  Isabel  might  be  disappointed,  but  she  never  voiced 
her  disappointment  or  hinted  at  it,  and  Alex  thought  she 
tried  to  conceal  it  from  herself.  But  Barbara  would  not  be 
disappointed.  She  might  be  rather  pleased,  and  make  the 
small,  veiled,  spiteful  comments  by  which  she  occasionally, 
and  always  unexpectedly,  paid  one  back  for  past  slights  or 
unkindnesses. 

Alex  felt  that  she  could  not  bear  any  further  mortifica- 
tions. 

The  question  of  Barbara's  coming  out  was  still  undecided, 
principally  owing  to  Alex's  strenuous  efforts  to  persuade 
her  mother  not  to  allow  it,  when  M.  Achille  de  Villef  ranche 
made  the  ceremonious  visit  to  Clevedon  Square  which  Bar- 
bara had  announced. 

He  came  on  a  Sunday,  so  soon  after  three  o'clock  that 
Lady  Isabel's  luncheon  guests  had  barely  departed,  and  sat 
on  the  extreme  edge  of  his  chair,  a  slim,  beautifully-rolled 
umbrella  between  his  knees,  and  his  silk  hat  balanced  on  the 
top  of  it.    His  tie  was  tied  into  an  astonishing  bow  with  out- 

[i68] 


BARBARA 


spread  ends  that  irresistibly  reminded  Alex  of  Barbara's 
hair-ribbon. 

He  spoke  excellent  English,  very  rapidly,  but  occasionally 
lapsed  into  still  more  rapid  French,  in  which  he  poured  forth 
his  enthusiasm  for  **  cette  chere  ile  des  brouillards,"  which 
description  of  her  native  land  was  fortunately  uncompre- 
hended  by  Lady  Isabel. 

Altogether  Achille  was  so  like  a  Frenchman  on  the  stage 
that  Alex  almost  expected  to  see  him  fall  upon  his  knees  in 
the  drawing-room  when  Barbara  demurely  obeyed  the  sum- 
mons sent  up  to  the  schoolroom  by  her  mother,  and  appeared 
in  her  prim,  dark-blue  schoolroom  frock.  He  certainly 
sprang  to  his  feet  with  a  sort  of  bound,  but  any  further 
intentions  were  frustrated  by  his  elegant  umbrella,  which  got 
between  his  feet  and  nearly  tripped  him  up,  and  sent  his 
beautiful  top-hat  rolling  into  the  furthest  corner  of  the 
drawing-room. 

Alex  had  to  recognize  that  Achille  behaved  with  great 
presence  of  mind,  even  taken  at  such  a  disadvantage.  He 
bowed  over  Barbara's  hand,  at  the  same  time  kicking  his 
umbrella  carelessly  aside.  He  waved  a  contemptuous  hand 
which  made  the  behaviour  of  his  hat  a  thing  of  no  account, 
and  he  did  not  even  trouble  himself  to  retrieve  it  until  Bar- 
bara was  seated,  when  he  strolled  away  to  pick  it  up  in  a 
nonchalant  manner,  talking  all  the  time  of  other  things. 

But  in  spite  of  the  high-handedness  of  Achille,  Alex  felt 
that  the  whole  affair  was  of  the  nature  of  a  farce,  and  was 
ashamed  of  herself  for  deriving  unmistakable  satisfaction 
from  the  conviction  that  no  one  could  take  Barbara's  con- 
quest seriously. 

Even  Sir  Francis,  who  found  Achille  still  discoursing  in 
the  drawing-room  on  his  return  from  the  Club  at  seven 
o'clock,  indulged  in  a  little  mild  chaffing  of  his  younger 
daughter  when  M.  de  Villefranche  amid  many  bows,  had 
finally  taken  his  leave. 

Barbara  responded  with  a  sprightly  amiability  that  she 

[169] 


CONSEQUENCES 


had  never  displayed  in  her  pre-Neuilly  days,  and  which  Alex 
angrily  and  uncomprehendingly  perceived  both  pleased  and 
amused  Sir  Francis. 

"  But  I  am  not  sure  I  approve  of  your  taste  in  the  selec- 
tion of  your  admirers,  my  dear,"  he  said  humorously,  his 
right  hand  lightly  swinging  his  glasses  against  his  left. 

"  I  have  never  met  any  Englishmen,  you  know,  father," 
said  Barbara  piteously,  opening  her  eyes  very  wide.  "If 
mother  would  only  let  me  come  out  this  year  and  see  a  few 
people ! " 

Alex  was  aghast  at  Barbara's  duplicity,  recognizing  per- 
fectly her  manoeuvre  of  implying  that  only  her  mother's 
consent  was  still  required  for  her  debut. 

"  Well,  well,  well,"  said  Sir  Francis,  wearing  the  expres- 
sion of  an  indulgent  parent ;  "  but  surely  young  ladies  are 
expected  to  wait  till  their  eighteenth  birthday?" 

"  Oh,  but  I  should  so  like  a  long  frock,"  sighed  Barbara, 
her  head  on  one  side  —  an  admirable  rendering  of  the 
typical  *'  young  lady  '^  known  and  admired  of  her  father's 
generation. 

Sir  Francis  laughed,  unmistakable  yielding  foreshadowed 
in  his  tone,  and  in  the  glance  he  directed  towards  his  wife. 

"  'Gad !  Isabel,  we  shall  have  a  regular  little  society  but- 
terfly on  our  hands ;  what  do  you  think  ?  " 

Lady  Isabel,  also  smiling,  nevertheless  said  almost  reluc- 
tantly, as  though  to  imply  that  assent  would  be  in  defiance 
of  her  better  judgment: 

"  Of  course,  this  year  will  be  exceptionally  gay  because  of 
the  Jubilee.  I  should  rather  like  her  to  come  out  when  there 
is  so  much  going  on,  but  I  don't  quite  know  about  taking 
two  of  them  everywhere."  She  glanced  at  Alex  and 
sighed  almost  involuntarily.  It  was  impossible  not  to  re- 
member the  tentative  plans  that  they  had  discussed  so  short 
a  while  ago  for  a  brilliant  wedding  that  should  take  place, 
just  when  all  London  was  busy  with  festivals  in  honour  of 
the  Queen's  Diamond  Jubilee.  The  same  recollection  shot 
like  a  pang  through  Alex,  feeling  the  pain  of  her  mother's 

[170] 


BARBARA 


disappointment  far  more  acutely  than  her  own  humiUation, 
and  making  her  speak  sharply,  and  almost  unaware  of  what 
she  said,  sooner  than  endure  a  moment's  silence: 

"  You  can  take  Barbara  instead  of  me.  I  hate  balls  and 
Tm  sick  of  going  to  things." 

She  was  horrified  at  the  sound  of  the  words  as  she  spoke 
them,  and  at  her  own  roughened,  mortified  voice. 

There  was  a  moment's  silence. 

"  That,"  said  Sir  Francis  gently  and  gravely,  "  is  neither  a 
very  gracious  nor  a  very  dutiful  speech,  Alex.  Your 
mother  has  spared  herself  neither  trouble  nor  fatigue  in 
conducting  you  to  those  entertainments  organized  for  your 
pleasure  and  advantage,  and  it  is  a  poor  reward  for  her  many 
sacrifices  to  be  told  with  a  scowling  face  that  you  are  '  sick 
of  going  about.'  If  those  are  your  sentiments,  I  shall 
strongly  advise  her  to  consult  her  own  convenience  in  the 
future,  instead  of  making  everything  give  way  to  your  pleas- 
ures, as  she  has  done  for  the  last  two  years." 

Lady  Isabel  looked  distressed,  and  said,  "  It  is  very  dif- 
ficult to  know  what  you  want,  Alex.     If  you'd  only  say !  " 

"  I  don't  want  anything ;  I'm  quite  happy,"  began  Alex, 
overwhelmed  with  the  sense  of  her  own  ingratitude ;  and  by 
way  of  proving  her  words  she  began  to  cry  hopelessly,  al- 
though she  knew  that  Sir  Francis  could  not  bear  tears,  and 
that  anything  in  the  nature  of  a  scene  made  Lady  Isabel 
fed  ill. 

"  Control  yourself,"  said  her  father. 

They  all  looked  at  her  in  silence,  and  her  nervousness 
made  her  give  a  loud  sob. 

"  If  you  are  hysterical,  Alex,  you  had  better  go  to  bed." 

Alex  was  only  too  thankful  to  obey.  Still  sobbing,  she 
received  the  conventional  good-night  kiss  which  neither  she 
nor  her  parents  would  have  dreamed  of  omitting,  however 
deep  their  displeasure  with  her,  and  left  the  room  reproach- 
ing herself  bitterly. 

They  had  all  been  so  cheerful  before  she  spoilt  it  all.  Sir 
Francis  in  unwontedly  good  spirits,  and  both  of  them  pleased 

[171] 


CONSEQUENCES 


at  the  harmless  amusement  caused  by  Barbara's  visitor. 

"  I  spoil  everything/'  Alex  told  herself  passionately,  and 
longed  for  some  retreat  where  she  might  be  the  solitary  vic- 
tim of  her  own  temperament,  and  need  not  bear  the  double 
pang  of  the  vexation  and  grief  which  she  inflicted  upon 
others. 

She  did  not  go  downstairs  to  dinner,  and  soon  after  eight 
o'clock  Barbara  came  in  and  told  her  that  there  was  supper 
in  the  schoolroom  for  both  of  them. 

"  Though  after  this,"  said  Barbara  importantly,  "  I  shall 
be  having  dinner  properly  in  the  dining-room  quite  soon. 
They  are  going  to  let  me  put  up  my  hair,  and  I  think  they 
will  let  me  be  presented  at  a  late  Drawing-room,  though  they 
won't  promise.     It  was  settled  after  you  went  upstairs." 

"  Are  they  vexed  with  me?  "  asked  Alex  dejectedly. 

"  Not  particularly.     Only  disappointed." 

Alex  would  rather  have  been  told  that  they  were  angry. 

She  had  not  spirit  enough  left  to  snub  Barbara,  discours- 
ing untiringly  of  all  that  she  meant  to  do  and  to  wear,  until 
at  last  her  younger  sister  remarked  patronizingly: 

"  Cheer  up,  Alex.  I  believe  you're  afraid  of  my  cutting 
you  out.  But  we  shall  be  quite  different  styles,  you  know. 
I  can't  hope  to  be  a  beauty,  so  I  shall  go  in  for  being  chic. 
Helene  always  says  it  pays  in  the  long  run.  By  the  bye, 
Achille  thought  you  were  very  pretty." 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  " 

"  He  told  me  so." 

**  Nonsense !  How  could  he  ?  I  was  in  the  room  the 
whole  time." 

"  Oh,  there  are  ways  and  means,"  retorted  Barbara,  toss- 
ing her  head. 

Alex  would  not  gratify  her  by  asking  further  questions. 
To  her  habitual  fashion  of  ignoring  slights  until  it  became 
convenient  to  repay  them,  however,  Barbara  added  now  an 
impervious  armour  of  self-satisfaction  at  the  prospect  of 
her  approaching  entry  into  the  world. 

She  even,  three  months  later,  received  with  no  other  dis- 

[172] 


BARBARA 


play  of  feeling  than  a  rather  contemptuous  little  laugh,  the 
elaborately-worded  lettre  de  faire  part  which  announced 
the  approaching  marriage  of  Helene  de  Metrancourt  de  la 
Hautefeuille  to  her  cousin,  Achille  Marie  de  Villefranche. 


W3\ 


XV 

Diamond  Jubilee 

ALL  that  summer  every  one  spoke  of  "Jubilee 
weather,"  and  London  grew  hotter  and  sunnier  and 
more  crowded  day  by  day. 

Alex  found  herself  wishing,  fretfully  and  almost  angrily, 
that  she  could  enjoy  it  all.  But  the  sensation  of  loneliness 
that  had  always  oppressed  her,  although  she  did  not  analyse 
it,  was  always  most  poignant  amongst  a  great  number  of 
people,  and  her  listlessness  and  self -absorption  in  society  at 
last  caused  Lady  Isabel  to  ask  her  gently,  but  with  unmis- 
takable vexation,  whether  she  had  rather  **  leave  most  of 
the  gaieties  to  little  Barbara,  to  whom  it's  all  new  and 
amusing." 

"  Why  ?  "  asked  Alex,  startled. 

**  My  darling,  I  can  see  you're  not  very  happy,  and  I  quite 
understand  that,  of  course,  one  doesn't  get  over  these  things 
in  a  minute,"  said  Lady  Isabel,  with  a  sigh  for  the  memory 
of  Noel  Cardew.  "  This  will  be  your  third  season,  and  I 
had  hoped  it  would  be  the  best  of  them  all,  what  with  the 
Jubliee  celebrations  and  everything  —  but  if  you're  rather 
out  of  heart  with  the  gaieties  just  now,  I  don't  want  to  force 
you  into  them,  poor  child." 

Lady  Isabel  gazed  with  wistful,  puzzled  eyes  that  held 
nothing  but  uncomprehending  perplexity  at  her  disappoint- 
ing eldest  daughter.  Alex  knew  that  she  was  wondering 
silently  why  that  daughter,  expensively  educated  and  still 
more  expensively  dressed,  admittedly  pretty  and  well-bred, 
should  still  lack  any  semblance  of  attractiveness,  should  still 
fail  to  achieve  any  semblance  of  popularity. 

Alex  herself  wondered  drearily  if  she  was  always  destined 

[174] 


DIAMOND   JUBILEE 


to  find  herself  out  of  all  harmony  with  her  surroundings. 
She  never  questioned  but  that  the  fault  lay  entirely  in  her- 
self, and  a  sort  of  fatalism  made  her  accept  it  all  with  apa- 
thetic matter-of-factness. 

She  gave  inert  acquiescence  to  Lady  Isabel's  tentative  sug- 
gestion that  most  of  the  invitations  pouring  in  daily  should 
be  accepted  on  Barbara's  behalf  only,  partly  because  she 
hated  being  taken  out  with  her  sister,  who  was  always  criti- 
cal and  observant,  and  partly  from  sheer  desire  that  Lady 
Isabel  should  no  longer  have  the  mortification  of  watching 
a  social  progress,  the  indifference  of  which  Alex  regarded 
with  mtorbid  exaggeration. 

Barbara,  rather  to  Alex'  surprise,  although  enjoying  her- 
self with  a  sort  of  quiet  determination,  proved  to  be  ex- 
ceedingly shy,  but  in  two  months  she  had  achieved  several 
gushing,  intimate  friendships  with  girls  rather  older  than 
herself,  which  led  to  her  receiving  innumerable  invitations 
to  tea-parties,  a  form  of  entertainment  always  abhorred  by 
Alex,  but  from  which  Barbara  generally  returned  with  one 
or  two  new  acquaintances,  who  were  sure  to  claim  dances 
from  her  on  meeting  her  at  subsequent  balls. 

She  was  not  very  pretty,  and  evening  dresses,  displaying 
her  thin  arms  and  shoulders,  took  away  from  the  effect  of 
smartness  that  she  had  acquired  in  France,  but  she  danced 
exceptionally  well,  and  was  seldom  left  partnerless. 

Alex  often  wondered  what  Barbara,  who  was  notoriously 
silent  and  awkward  with  strangers,  could  find  to  talk  about 
to  her  partners. 

It  did  not  occur  to  her  that  Barbara  made  an  art  of  listen- 
ing to  them. 

The  climax  of  the  season's  festivities  was  reached  on  the 
blazing  day  towards  the  end  of  June,  when  the  Jubilee  pro- 
cession wound  its  way  through  the  flagged  and  decorated 
streets,  with  the  small,  stout,  black-clad  figure  in  the  midst 
of  it  all,  bowing  indefatigably  to  the  crowds  that  thronged 
streets  and  windows  and  balconies  and  even,  when  prac- 
tical roofs. 

[175] 


CONSEQUENCES 


A  window  of  Sir  Francis'  Club  in  Piccadilly  was  placed 
by  him,  with  some  ceremony,  at  the  disposal  of  his  wife,  his 
eldest  son  up  from  Eton,  and  one  daughter,  but  it  was  evi- 
dent that  he  would  regard  any  further  display  of  family  as 
rather  excessive,  and  Alex  herself  suggested  that  she  should 
see  it  all  from  a  window  in  Grosvenor  Place  which  had 
been  procured  for  Pamela  and  Archie,  under  the  care  of  old 
Nurse,  and  various  minor  members  of  the  household. 

"  But  that  would  be  so  dull ! "  protested  Lady  Isabel, 
shocked. 

"  Alex  can  do  as  she  pleases,  my  dear,"  said  Sir  Francis 
stiffly. 

He  was  not  pleased  with  his  eldest  daughter,  and  imagined 
that  her  evident  shrinking  from  society  arose,  not  from  her 
acute  perception  of  this  fact,  but  from  shame  at  the  recol- 
lection of  her  behaviour  towards  Noel  Cardew,  which  Sir 
Francis  in  his  own  mind  stigmatized  as  both  dishonourable 
and  unladylike.  The  further  reflection  he  gave  to  the  mat- 
ter—  and  reflection  with  Sir  Francis  was  never  anything 
but  deliberate  —  the  more  seriously  he  resented  his  daugh- 
ter's lapse  from  the  code  of  "  good  form,"  and  the  harassed 
look  which  she  was  gradually  causing  to  mar  his  wife's 
placid  beauty. 

He  would  have  liked  Alex  to  be  prettily  eager  for  pleas- 
ure, as  were  the  young  ladies  of  his  day  and  ideal,  and  he 
regarded  her  obvious  discontent  and  unhappiness  as  a  slur 
on  Lady  Isabel's  exertions  on  her  behalf. 

Very  slowly,  with  the  dull  implacability  of  a  man  slow  to 
assimilate  a  grievance,  and  slower  still  to  forgive  what  he 
does  not  understand.  Sir  Francis  was  becoming  angry  with 
Alex. 

"  Let  her  do  as  she  likes,  Isabel,"  he  repeated.  "  If  the 
society  we  can  provide  is  less  amusing  than  that  of  children 
and  servants,  by  all  means  let  her  join  them." 

Lady  Isabel  did  not  repeat  his  words  to  Alex.  She  only 
said : 

**  Your  father  says,  do  as  you  like,  darlin*.    We  shan't 

[176] 


DIAMOND   JUBILEE 


have  over-much  room,  of  course,  especially  as  we  have  asked 
so  many  people  for  lunch  afterwards,  but  if  you  really  cared 
about  comin'  with  us,  I  could  manage  it  in  a  minute  — " 

She  paused,  as  though  for  Alex'  eager  acclamation,  but 
Barbara  broke  in  quickly: 

"  There  won't  be  much  room,  with  all  those  people  coming, 
will  there?  And  father  always  says  that  one  grown-up 
daughter  at  a  time  is  enough,  so  if  Alex  really  doesn't  want 
to  come  it  seems  a  pity  .  .  ." 

So  Alex,  with  an  unreasonable  sense  of  injury,  that  yet 
was  in  some  distorted  way  a  relief  to  her,  as  showing  her 
not  to  be  alone  in  fault,  watched  the  procession  from  Gros- 
venor  Place,  with  Archie  flushed  and  shouting  with  excite- 
ment, and  Pamela,  in  curly,  cropped  hair  and  Liberty  silk 
picture  frock,  such  as  was  just  coming  into  fashion,  breaking 
into  shrill  cheers  of  rather  spasmodic  loyalty,  as  she  fidgeted 
up  and  down  the  length  of  the  bunting-hung  balcony. 

Alex,  on  the  whole,  was  sorry  when  it  was  all  over,  and  the 
two  children  ordered  into  the  carriage  by  Nurse  for  the 
return  to  Clevedon  Square. 

She  declared  that  she  was  going  to  walk  home  across  the 
Park,  partly  because  the  crowds  interested  her,  partly  to 
assert  her  independence  of  old  Nurse. 

"  Then  you'll  take  James  with  you,  in  a  crowd  like  this," 
the  old  autocrat  declared. 

"  Nonsense,  I  don't  want  James.  You'll  come  with  me, 
won't  you,  Holland  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Miss,"  said  the  maid  submissively. 

Since  Barbara's  coming  out,  the  sisters  had  shared  a  maid 
of  their  own,  and  Holland  very  much  preferred  Alex,  who 
cared  nothing  what  happened  to  her  clothes,  and  read  a  book 
all  the  time  that  her  hair  was  being  dressed,  to  the  exacting 
and  sometimes  rather  querulous  Barbara. 

They  found  the  Park  comparatively  free  from  people. 
Every  one  had  gone  to  find  some  place  of  refreshment,  or 
had  made  a  rush  to  secure  places  for  the  return  route  of  the 
procession  from  St.  Paul's  Cathedral. 


CONSEQUENCES 


Flags  streamed  and  waved  in  the  sunshine,  and  swinging 
rows  of  little  electric  globes  hung  everywhere,  in  readiness 
for  the  evening's  display  of  illuminations. 

Alex  suddenly  felt  very  tired  and  hot,  and  longed  to 
escape  from  the  glare  and  the  noise. 

She  wondered  whether,  if  Noel  had  been  with  her,  she 
could  have  taken  part  in  the  general  sense  of  holiday  and 
rejoicing,  sharing  it  with  him,  and  whilst  her  aching  lone- 
liness cried,  "  Yes,"  some  deeper-rooted  instinct  warned  her 
that  a  companionship  rooted  only  in  proximity  brings  with 
it  a  deeper  sense  of  isolation  than  any  solitude. 

Her  steps  began  to  flag,  and  she  wished  that  the  way 
through  the  Park  did  not  seem  so  interminable. 

*'  Couldn't  we  find  a  cab,  Holland  ?    I'm  tired." 

"  It  won't  be  easy.  Miss,  today,"  said  the  maid,  a  dis- 
quieted eye  roving  over  the  Park  railings  to  the  dusty  streets 
where  pedestrians,  indeed,  thronged  endlessly,  but  few  ve- 
hicles of  any  sort  were  to  be  discerned. 

Alex  would  have  liked  to  sit  down,  but  none  of  the  benches 
were  unoccupied,  and,  in  any  case,  she  knew  that  Lady  Isabel 
would  be  shocked  at  her  doing  such  a  thing,  under  no  better 
chaperonage  than  that  of  a  maid. 

Quite  conscious  of  her  own  unreason,  she  yet  said  fret- 
fully: 

"  I  really  can't  get  all  the  way  home,  unless  I  can  sit 
down  and  rest  somewhere." 

She  had  only  said  it  to  relieve  her  own  sense  of  fatigue 
and  irritability,  and  was  surprised  when  Holland  replied  in 
a  tone  of  reasonable  suggestion: 

"There's  the  convent  just  close  to  Bryanston  Square, 
Miss.    You  can  always  go  in  there  —  it's  always  open." 

"What  convent?" 

Holland  named  the  Order  of  the  house  at  Liege  where 
Alex  had  been  at  school. 

She  exclaimed  at  the  coincidence. 

"  I  thought  their  London  house  was  in  the  East  End." 

"  Yes,  Miss,"  Holland  explained,  becoming  suddenly  volu- 

[178] 


DIAMOND   JUBILEE 


ble.  "  But  the  Sisters  opened  a  new  house  last  year.  I 
went  to  the  consecration  of  the  chapel.  It  was  a  beautiful 
ceremony,  Miss." 

"  Of  course,  you're  a  Catholic,  aren't  you?    I  forgot." 

"  Yes,  Miss,"  said  Holland,  stiffening.  It  was  evident 
that  the  fact  to  which  Alex  referred  so  lightly  was  of  su- 
preme importance  to  her. 

"  Well,  a  church  is  better  than  nowhere  in  this  heat,"  said 
Miss  Clare  disconsolately. 

Lady  Isabel  had  decreed  nearly  two  years  ago  that  church- 
going,  at  all  events  during  the  season,  was  incompatible  with 
late  nights,  and  Alex  had  acquiesced  without  much  difficulty. 

Religion  did  not  interest  her,  and  she  had  kept  up  no 
intercourse  with  the  nuns  at  Liege  since  leaving  school. 

Holland,  looking  at  once  shocked  and  rather  excited, 
pointed  out  the  tall,  narrow  building,  wedged  into  a  line  of 
similar  buildings,  with  a  high  flight  of  steps  leading  to  the 
open  door. 

"  It's  always  open  like  that,"  Holland  said.  "  Any  one 
can  go  into  the  chapel." 

The  open  door,  indeed,  gave  straight  on  to  the  oak  door 
of  the  chapel  across  a  narrow  entrance  lobby. 

Alex  was  instantly  conscious  of  the  sharply-defined  con- 
trast between  the  hot  glare  and  incessant  roar  of  multifarious 
noises  outside  in  the  brilliant  streets,  and  the  dark,  cool 
hush  that  pervaded  the  silent  convent  chapel. 

The  sudden  sensation  of  physical  relief  almost  brought 
tears  to  her  eyes,  as  she  sank  thankfully  on  to  a  little  cush- 
ioned prieu^dieu  drawn  up  close  to  the  high,  carved  rood- 
screen  before  the  chancel  steps. 

Holland  had  slid  noiselessly  to  her  knees  behind  one  of 
the  humble  wooden  benches  close  to  the  entrance. 

There  was  absolute  silence. 

As  her  eyes  grew  accustomed  to  the  soft  gloom,  Alex  saw 
that  the  chapel  was  a  very  small  one,  of  an  odd  oblong 
shape,  with  high,  carved  stalls  on  either  side  of  it  that  re- 
called the  big  convent  chapel  at  Liege  to  her  mind.    The  wax 

[179] 


CONSEQUENCES 


candles  shed  a  peculiarly  mild  glow  over  the  High  Altar, 
which  was  decked  with  a  mass  of  white  blossom  and  feath- 
ery green,  but  the  rest  of  the  chapel  was  unlit  except  by  the 
warm,  softened  shaft  of  sunshine  that  struck  through  the 
painted  oval  windows  behind  the  altar,  and  lay  in  deep 
splashes  of  colour  over  the  white-embroidered  altar-cloth 
and  the  red-carpeted  altar  steps. 

The  peace  and  harmony  of  her  surroundings  fell  on  Alex' 
wearied  spirit  with  an  almost  poignant  realization  of  their 
'beauty.  The  impression  thus  made  upon  her,  striking  with 
utter  unexpectedness,  struck  deep,  and  to  the  end  of  her  life 
the  remembrance  was  to  remain  with  her,  of  the  sudden 
sense  which  had  come  upon  her  of  entering  into  another 
world,  when  she  stepped  straight  from  the  streets  of  London 
into  the  convent  chapel,  on  Diamond  Jubilee  Day. 

It  seemed  to  her  that  she  had  been  sitting  still  there  for 
some  time,  scarcely  conscious  of  thought  or  feeling,  when  the 
remembrance  gradually  began  to  filter  through  her  mind,  as 
it  were,  of  teachings,  unheeded  at  the  time,  from  her  school- 
days at  Liege. 

What  if  the  solution  to  all  her  troubles  lay  here,  before 
the  small  gilt  door  of  the  tabernacle  ? 

Alex  had  never  prayed  in  her  life.  The  mechanical  for- 
mula extorted  from  the  Clare  children  by  old  Nurse  had 
held  no  meaning  for  them,  least  of  all  to  Alex,  who  was  not 
temperamentally  religious,  and  instinctively  disliked  anything 
which  was  presented  to  her  in  the  light  of  an  obligation. 

Her  lack  of  fundamental  religious  instruction  had  re- 
mained undiscovered,  and  consequently  unrectified,  through- 
out her  schooldays,  and  she  had  unconsciously  adopted  since 
then  the  standard  typified  no  less  in  Sir  Francis'  courte- 
ously blank  attitude  towards  the  faith  of  his  fathers,  than  in 
Lady  Isabel's  conventional  adherence  to  the  minimum  of 
church-going  permitted  by  the  social  code. 

What  if  comfort  had  been  waiting  for  her  all  the  time? 

**  Come  unto  Me  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy  bur- 
dened, and  I  will  refresh  you." 

[i8o] 


DIAMOND   JUBILEE 


Alex  did  not  know  that  she  was  crying  until  she  found 
herself  wiping  away  the  tears  that  were  blinding  her. 

The  loneliness  that  encompassed  her  seemed  to  her  to  be 
suddenly  lightened,  and  she  formulated  the  first  vague,  stam- 
mering prayer  of  her  life. 

"  Help  me  .  .  .  make  me  good  .  .  .  and  let  there  be 
some  one  soon  who  will  understand  .  .  .  some  one  who  will 
understand  and  still  love  me  .  .  .  who  will  want  me  to  care 
too  ...  If  only  there  was  some  one  for  whose  sake  every- 
thing really  mattered,  I  believe  I  could  be  good.  .  .  .  Please 
help  me.  .  .  ." 

She  felt  certain  that  her  prayer  would  be  heard  and 
granted. 

There  was  the  slightest  possible  movement  beside  her,  and 
turning  sharply,  she  saw  the  tall  figure  of  a  woman  wearing 
the  habit  of  the  Order,  standing  over  her. 

She  had  not  known  that  this  nun  was  in  the  chapel. 

The  tall,  commanding  presence  bent  and  knelt  down  on  the 
ground  beside  her,  with  a  deep  inclination  of  her  head  to- 
wards the  High  Altar. 

"  Forgive  me  for  disturbing  you,  but  when  you  are  quite 
ready  to  come  away,  will  you  come  and  speak  to  me  for  a 
moment  or  two  before  you  go  ?  "  She  paused  for  a  second, 
but  Alex  was  too  much  surprised  to  reply. 

"  Don't  hurry.     I  shall  wait  for  you  outside." 

The  nun  rose  slowly,  laying  her  hand  for  an  instant  on 
Alex*  shoulder,  and  moved  soundlessly  away. 

Alex  looked  at  her  watch,  and  was  surprised  by  the  late- 
ness of  the  hour. 

She  drew  down  her  veil,  and  gathered  up  the  long,  fash- 
ionable skirt  of  her  dress,  preparatory  to  leaving  the  chapel. 

In  the  little  lobby  outside  she  looked  round  curiously.  On 
the  instant,  some  one  moved  forward  out  of  a  shadowy 
corner. 

"  Come  in  here  for  a  moment,  won't  you  ?  I  think  it  is 
Miss  Clare?" 

"  Yes." 

[i8i] 


CONSEQUENCES 


Alex,  faintly  uneasy,  although  she  could  not  have  ex- 
plained why,  looked  round  for  her  maid. 

Holland  came  forward  at  once. 

"  Good  afternoon,  Mary,"  said  the  nun,  addressing  her 
calmly.     "  How  are  you  ?  " 

"Very  well,  thank  you.  Mother  Gertrude.  I  hadn't 
hoped  to  be  here  again  so  soon,  but  Miss  Clare  was  tired, 
and  we  were  just  going  past,  on  the  way  back  after  the 
'        procession." 

"  Ah,  yes,  to  be  sure,"  said  the  nun  —  with  the  air  of  re- 
calling an  unimportant  fact  — "  the  Jubilee  procession  takes 
place  today.  That  must  'make  the  streets  unpleasantly 
crowded.  Won't  you  rest  a  little  while  in  the  parlour.  Miss 
Clare?  Perhaps  your  maid  might  find  a  cab  to  take  you 
home." 

"  Will  you  try,  Holland  ?  "  said  Alex  eagerly.  She  felt 
unable  to  walk  any  more. 

This  time  Holland  made  no  demur  at  the  suggestion,  and 
only  glanced  a  respectful  farewell  at  the  nun,  who  said,  with 
a  smile  that  seemed  somehow  full  of  authority :  "  Good- 
bye, then,  Mary,  for  the  present.  I  will  take  care  of  your 
young  lady  whilst  you  are  away.  It  may  take  a  little  while 
to  find  a  cab  on  a  day  like  this." 

As  the  maid  went  out.  Mother  Gertrude  motioned  to  Alex 
to  precede  her  down  the  small,  uneven  steps  leading  out  of 
the  lobby  into  a  better-lighted  passage  beyond. 

"  There  are  two  steps  down,  that's  all.  These  old  houses 
are  dark,  and  inconveniently  built  —  but  we  are  lucky  to  get 
anything  so  central.  .  .  .  Come  into  the  parlour,  we  shall  not 
be  disturbed,  and  your  maid  will  know  where  to  find  us 
when  she  returns." 

"  I  had  no  idea  that  Holland  came  here,  and  —  and  knew 
you,"  said  Alex,  rather  confused. 

In  the  stiff,  ugly  parlour,  furnished  with  cane-seated  chairs 
and  a  round  table,  it  was  easy  to  see  Mother  Gertrude,  as 
she  seated  herself  opposite  to  Alex  in  the  window. 

She  was  an  exceptionally  tall,  upright  woman,  a  natural 

[182] 


DIAMOND   JUBILEE 


dignity  of  carriage  emphasized  by  the  sweeping  black  folds 
of  veil  and  habit,  her  hands  demurely  hidden  under  the  wide- 
falling  sleeves  as  she  sat  with  arms  lightly  crossed.  Her 
strong,  handsome  face,  of  a  uniform  light  reddish  colour, 
showed  one  or  two  hard  lines,  noticeably  round  the  closed, 
determined  mouth,  and  her  strongly-marked  eyebrows  almost 
met  over  straight-gazing,  very  light  grey  eyes.  Even  her 
religious  habit  could  not  conceal  the  lines  and  contour  of  a 
magnificent  figure,  belonging  to  a  woman  in  the  full  ma- 
turity of  life. 

"  Are  you  surprised  to  find  that  your  maid  comes  to  the 
convent  ?  "  she  asked,  smiling. 

Her  voice  was  deep  and  of  a  commanding  quality  that 
seemed  to  match  her  personality,  but  her  smile  was  her  least 
attractive  feature.  It  was  only  a  slow  widening  of  her 
mouth,  showing  a  set  of  patently  porcelain  teeth,  and  deep- 
ening the  creases  on  either  side  of  her  face.  Her  eyes  re- 
mained watchful  and  unchanged. 

"  Mary  Holland  was  one  of  our  children  when  she  was 
quite  a  little  thing,  at  our  Poor-school  at  Bermondsey.  She 
has  always  been  a  good  girl,  and  we  take  a  great  interest  in 
her." 

"  Was  that  why  you  knew  who  I  was  ?  "  Alex  inquired, 
remembering  how  the  nun  had  addressed  her  by-name. 

"  Yes.  I  knew  that  Mary  Holland  had  taken  a  place  with 
Lady  Isabel  Clare,  and  was  much  interested  to  hear  from 
her  of  her  *  young  lady.*  Tell  me,  were  you  not  at  school 
at  our  Mother-house  in  Belgium  ?  " 

Alex,  unversed  in  the  infinitely  far-reaching  ramifications 
of  inter-conventual  communication,  was  again  surprised. 

"Yes,  I  was  there  for  about  five  years,  but  I  don't  re- 
member— "     She  hesitated. 

"  Oh,  no,  I  was  never  there.  I  have  been  Superior  in 
London  for  more  than  ten  years,  but  I  have  heard  your 
name  several  times,  though  not  since  you  left  school.  We 
like  to  keep  in  touch  with  our  children,  but  you  have  prob- 
ably been  busy  going  about  with  your  mother  ?  " 

[183] 


CONSEQUENCES 


'*  I  didn't  even  know  there  was  a  house  of  the  Order 
here,"  Alex  admitted. 

"  It  has  not  been  established  very  long.  Our  chapel  was 
only  consecrated  a  few  months  ago.  It  is  very  tiny,  but 
perhaps  some  day  you  will  pay  another  visit  here." 

Mother  Gertrude  was  not  looking  at  Alex  as  she  spoke, 
but  down  at  her  own  long  rosary  beads ;  and  the  fact  some- 
how made  it  easier  for  Alex  to  reply  without  embarrassment. 

"  Yes,  I  should  like  to  come  if  I  may  —  and  if  I  can.  It 
felt  so  —  so  peaceful." 

"  Yes,"  returned  the  nun,  without  any  show  of  surprise  or 
indeed,  any  emotion  at  all,  in  her  carefully  colourless  voice. 
"  Yes,  it  is  very  peaceful  here  —  a  great  contrast  to  the 
hurry  and  unrest  of  the  world.  And  for  any  one  who  is 
tired,  or  troubled,  or  perhaps  unhappy,  and  conscious  of 
wrongdoing,  there  is  always  comfort  to  be  found  here.  No 
one  asks  any  questions,  and  if,  perhaps,  a  poor  soul  is  too 
much  worn-out  with  conflict  for  prayer,  why,  even  that  is 
not  necessary." 

Alex  gazed  at  her,  surprised. 

"  Do  you  think  that  God  wants  things  put  into  words  ?  " 
said  the  nun  with  her  slow  smile. 

Alex  did  not  know  what  to  reply.  She  looked  silently  at 
the  Superior,  and  felt  that  those  light,  penetrating,  grey  eyes 
had  probed  to  the  depths  of  her  confusion  and  beyond  it,  to 
the  senes  of  loneliness  and  bewilderment  that  had  made  her 
weep  in  the  chapel. 

"  Do  a  lot  of  people  come  here?  "  she  asked  involuntarily, 
from  the  sense  that  a  wide  experience  of  humanity  must 
have  gone  to  the  making  of  those  keen  perceptions. 

"  Yes.  Many  of  them  I  know,  and  see  here,  and  any- 
thing that  passes  in  this  little  room  is  held  in  sacred  confi- 
dence. But  very  often,  of  course,  there  are  visitors  to  the 
chapel  of  whom  we  know  nothing  —  just  passers-by." 

*'  That  was  what  I  was." 

The  nun  looked  at  her  for  a  moment.  "  And  yet,"  she 
said  slowly,  "  something  made  me  want  to  come  and  speak 

[1841 


DIAMOND   JUBILEE 


to  you,  even  before  I  caught  sight  of  your  maid,  and  guessed 
you  must  be  Miss  Clare.  It  is  curious  that  you  should  have 
turned  out  to  be  one  of  our  children." 

Alex  thought  so  too,  but  the  term  with  its  sense  of  shelter 
touched  her  strangely.  She  was  shaken  both  by  physical 
fatigue  and  her  recent  violent  crying,  and  moreover,  the 
forceful,  magnetic  personality  of  the  Superior  was  already 
making  its  sure  impression  upon  her  young,  unbalanced  sus- 
ceptibilities. 

"  May  I  see  you  again,  next  time  I  come  ? "  she  asked 
rather  tremulously. 

Mother  Gertrude  stood  up. 

"  Whenever  you  like,"  she  said  emphatically,  her  direct 
gaze  adding  weight  to  the  deliberately-spoken  words. 
"Come  whenever  you  like.  You  have  been  brought  here 
by  what  looks  like  a  strange  chance.  Don't  neglect  the  way 
now  that  you  know  it." 

She  held  Alex'  hand  in  hers  for  a  moment,  and  then  took 
her  back  to  the  little  lobby. 

"  Mary  has  actually  got  a  four-wheeled  cab !  That  is  very 
clever  of  her.  I  hope  they  will  not  have  been  anxious  about 
you  at  home.  You  must  tell  them  that  you  were  with 
friends,  quite  safe." 

She  laid  a  slight  emphasis  on  the  words,  smiling  a  little. 

"  Good-bye,"  said  Alex ;  "  thank  you  very  much." 

"Good-bye,"  repeated  the  Nun.  "And  God  bless  you, 
my  child." 


riS5] 


XVI 

Mother  Gertrude 

ALEX  felt  strangely  comforted  for  some  time  after 
that  visit  to  the  convent.  It  seemed  to  her  that  in 
appealing  to  the  God  who  dwelt  in  the  chapel  shrine, 
she  had  found  a  human  friend.  Secretly  she  thought  very 
often  of  the  Superior,  wondering  if  Mother  Gertrude  re- 
membered her  and  thought  of  her  too.  Once  or  twice  when 
she  was  out  with  Holland,  or  even  with  her  mother,  she 
manoeuvred  ct  little  in  order  to  go  past  the  tall,  undistin- 
guished-lookinj^  building,  and  look  up  curiously  at  its 
shrouded  windows.  But  she  did  not  actually  enter  the  con- 
vent again  until  three  weeks  later,  after  she  had  said  rather 
defiantly  to  Lady  Isabel : 

"  Do  you  mind  my  going  to  see  the  Superior  of  the  con- 
vent near  Bryanston  Square,  mother?  It's  the  new  house 
they've  opened  —  a  branch  of  the  Liege  house,  you  know." 

"  If  you  like,"  said  Lady  Isabel  indifferently.  "  What's 
put  it  into  your  head  ?  " 

"  Holland  told  me  about  it.  She  went  there  for  some 
ceremony  or  other  when  they  opened  the  chapel,  and  —  and 
she  knew  I'd  been  at  school  at  Liege,"  Alex  answered. 

She  was  conscious  that  the  reply  was  evasive,  but  she  was 
afraid  of  admitting  that  she  had  already  made  acquaintance 
with  the  Superior,  with  that  innate  sense,  peculiar  to  the 
period  in  which  she  lived,  that  anything  undertaken  upon  the 
initiative  of  a  child  would  ipso  facto  be  regarded  as  wrong 
or  dangerous  by  its  parents. 

"  But  mind,"  added  Lady  Isabel  suspiciously,  "  I  won't 
have  your  name  used  by  them.  I  mean  that  you  are  not  to 
promise  that  you'll  patronize  all  sorts  of  dowdy,  impossible 
charities." 

"  Very  well,  I  won't." 

[i86] 


MOTHER  GERTRUDE 


Alex  was  glad  to  have  permission  to  visit  the  convent 
under  any  conditions,  and  she  secretly  resolved  that  she 
would  make  an  elastic  use  of  the  sanction  given  her,  during 
the  short  time  that  remained  before  the  usual  exodus  from 
London. 

She  felt  half  afraid  that  Mother  Gertrude  might  have 
forgotten  her,  but  the  nun  greeted  her  with  a  warmth 
that  fanned  to  instant  flame  the  spark  of  Alex'  ready  in- 
fatuation. She  quickly  fell  into  one  of  the  old,  enamoured 
enthusiasms  that  had  cost  her  so  much  in  her  childish  days. 

Mother  Gertrude  did  not  speak  of  religion  to  her,  or  touch 
upon  any  religious  teaching,  but  she  encouraged  Alex  to 
speak  much  about  herself,  and  to  admit  that  she  was  very 
unhappy. 

"  Have  you  no  one  at  home  ?  " 

"  They  don't  understand  me,"  Alex  said  with  conviction. 

'*  That  is  hard  to  bear.  And  you  are  very  sensitive ' — 
and  with  very  great  capabilities  for  either  good  or  evil." 

Alex  thrilled  to  the  echo  of  a  conviction  which  she  had 
hardly  dared  to  admit  to  herself. 

"  My  dear  child  —  do  you  mind  my  calling  you  so  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no  —  no.  I  wish  you  would  call  me  by  my  name  — 
Alex." 

"  What,"  the  Superior  said,  smiling,  "  as  though  you 
were  one  of  my  own  children,  in  spite  of  being  a  young 
lady  of  the  world  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes  —  if  you'll  let  me,"  breathed  Alex,  looking  up 
at  the  woman  who  had  fascinated  her  with  all  the  fervour 
of  her  ardent,  unbalanced  temperament  in  her  gaze. 

"  My  poor,  lonely  little  Alex !  You  shall  be  my  child 
then."  The  grave,  lingering  kiss  on  her  forehead  came  like 
a  consecration. 

Alex  went  home  that  day  in  ecstasy.  The  whole  force  of 
her  nature  was  once  more  directed  into  one  channel,  and 
she  was  happy. 

One  day  she  told  Mother  Gertrude,  with  the  complete 
luxury  of  unreserve  always  characteristic  of  her  reckless 

[187] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


attachments,  the  story  of  her  brief  engagement  to  Noel 
Car  dew. 

The  nun  looked  strangely  at  her.  "  So  you  had  the  cour- 
age to  go  against  the  wishes  of  your  family  and  break  it  all 
off,  little  Alex?" 

It  seemed  wonderful  to  Alex  that  the  action  which  had 
been  so  condemned,  and  which  she  had  long  ceased  to  regard 
as  anything  but  folly,  should  be  praised  as  courageous. 

"  I  wasn't  happy,"  she  faltered.  "  I  used  always  to  think 
that  love,  which  one  read  about,  made  everything  perfect 
when  it  came  —  but  from  the  first  moment  of  our  engage- 
ment I  knew  it  was  all  wrong  somehow." 

"So  you  knew  that?"  the  Superior  said,  smilingly. 
"  You  have  been  given  very  great  gifts." 

"  Me  —  how  ?  "  faltered  Alex. 

''  It  is  not  every  one  who  would  have  had  the  courage  to 
withdraw  before  it  was  too  late." 

"  You  mean,  it  would  have  been  much  worse  if  I'd  ac- 
tually married  him?  " 

**  Much,  much  worse.  A  finite  human  love  will  never 
satisfy  that  restless  heart  of  yours,  Alex.  Tell  me,  have  you 
ever  found  full  satisfaction  in  the  love  of  any  creature  yet? 
Hasn't  there  always  been  something  lacking  —  something  to 
grieve  and  disappoint  you  ?  " 

Alex  looked  back.  She  thought  of  the  stormy  loves  of 
her  childhood ;  of  Queenie,  on  whom  she  had  lavished  such  a 
passion  of  devotion ;  of  her  vain,  thwarted  longing  to  bestow 
all  where  the  merest  modicum  would  have  sufficed;  lastly, 
she  thought  of  Noel  Cardew. 

"  Noel  did  not  want  all  that  I  could  have  given  him,"  she 
faltered.     "  He  never  knew  the  reallest  part  of  me  at  all." 

"  And  yet  he  loved  you,  Alex  —  he  wanted  you  for  his  wife. 
But  the  closest  of  human  intercourse,  the  warmest  and  dear- 
est of  human  sympathy,  will  never  be  enough  for  a  tempera- 
ment like  yours."  She  spoke  with  such  authority  in  her 
voice  that  Alex  was  almtJSt  frightened. 

"  Shall  I  always  be  lonely,  then??  "  she  asked,  feeling  that 

[i88] 


MOTHER  GERTRUDE 


whatever  the  answer  she  must  accept  it  unquestioningly  for 
truth. 

"  Until  you  have  learnt  the  lesson  which  I  think  is  before 
you,"  said  the  nun  slowly. 

"  I  am  not  lonely  now  that  I  have  you,"  Alex  asserted, 
clinging  passionately  to  her  hand. 

Mother  Gertrude  did  not  answer  —  she  never  contradicted 
such  assertions  —  but  her  steady,  light  eyes  gazed  outward 
with  a  strange  pale  flame,  as  though  at  some  unseen  bourne 
destined  both  to  be  her  goal  and  that  of  Alex. 

"  No  one  has  ever  understood  me  like  you  do." 

"  Poor  little  child,  I  think  I  understand  you.  You  have 
told  me  a  great  deal,  and  your  confidence  has  meant  very 
much  to  me.  Besides  — "  The  Superior  paused.  "  A  nun 
does  not  often  tell  her  own  story,  but  I  am  going  to  tell  you 
a  little  of  mine.     It  is  not  so  very  unlike  your  own. 

"  When  I  was  seventeen  I  wanted  to  be  a  nun.  I  told  my 
parents  so,  and  they  refused  their  permission.  They  loved 
me  very,  very  dearly,  and  I  was  the  only  child.  My  father 
told  me  that  it  would  break  his  heart  if  I  left  them,  and  my 
mother  was  delicate  —  almost  an  invalid.  I  held  out  for  a 
little  time,  but  their  grief  nearly  broke  my  heart,  and  I  per- 
suaded myself  that  it  was  my  duty  to  listen  to  them,  and  to 
stay  at  home.  So  I  stifled  the  voice  of  God  in  my  heart, 
and  when  I  was  two-and-twenty,  a  man  much  older  than 
I  was,  whom  I  had  known  all  my  life,  asked  me  to  marry 
him."  The  nun  spoke  with  difficulty.  "  I  have  not  spoken 
of  this  to  any  human  being  for  over  twenty  years,  but  I 
believe  that  I  am  right  in  telling  you  a  little  of  what  I  went 
through.  I  will  gladly  bring  myself  to  speak  of  it,  if  it  is 
going  to  be  of  any  help  to  you.  I  hesitated  for  a  long  while. 
He  told  me  that  he  loved  me  dearly  and  I  knew  it  w^s  true. 
I  knew  that  his  wife  would  have  the  happiest  of  homes  and 
the  most  faithful  and  devoted  of  husbands.  A  hundred 
times,  Alex,  I  was  on  the  verge  of  telling  him  that  I  would 
marry  him.  It  would  have  been  the  greatest  happiness  to 
my  father  and  mother,  and  it  would  have  done  away,  once 

[189] 


CONSEQUENCES 


and  for  all,  with  that  lurking  dread  of  a  convent  which  I  knew 
was  always  at  the  back  of  their  minds.  They  were  grow- 
ing old,  too  —  they  had  neither  of  them  been  young  people 
when  I  was  born  —  and  I  knew  that  a  time  would  come 
when  I  should  find  myself  all  alone.  I  had  no  very  great 
friends,  and  very  few  relations  —  none  with  whom  I  could 
have  found  a  home ;  and  in  those  days  a  woman  left  by  her- 
self had  very  little  freedom,  very  few  outlets  indeed.  I  had 
given  up  the  thought  of  being  a  nun  altogether.  I  thought 
that  God  had  taken  away  the  gift  of  my  vocation  because 
I  had  wilfully  neglected  it.  Even  at  my  blindest  I  could 
never  persuade  myself  that  it  had  never  existed  —  that  voca- 
tion which  I  had  tried  so  long  to  ignore.  And  then,  Alex, 
God  in  His  great  love,  again  took  pity  on  me,  and  showed 
me  where  my  treasure  really  was.  I  had  tried  hard  to  cling 
to  human  love  and  happiness,  to  find  my  comfort  there,  but 

—  just  think  of  it,  Alex  —  a  Divine  Love  was  waiting  for 
me  .  .  .  It  was  a  very  hard  struggle,  Alex.  I  knew  that  he 
wanted  all  of  me,  unworthy  as  I  was.  And  I  was  so  weak 
and  so  cowardly  and  so  selfish  —  that  I  shrank  from  giving 
all.  I  knew  that  no  half  measures  would  be  possible.  Like 
you,  I  knew  that  it  would  have  to  be,  with  me,  all  or  none  — 
to  whom  much  is  given,  from  him  will  much  be  asked,  Alex 

—  and  one  night  I  could  hold  out  no  longer.  I  resolved  that 
it  should  be  all.  After  that,  there  was  no  drawing  back. 
I  wrote  and  said  that  I  should  never  marry  —  that  my  mind 
was  made  up.  Less  than  a  year  afterwards  I  was  in  the 
convent.  But  it  was  a  terrible  year.  It  was  not  for  a  long, 
long  while  that  God  let  me  feel  any  consolation.  Time  after 
time,  I  felt  that  He  had  forsaken  me,  and  I  could  only  cling 
to  the  remembrance  of  the  certainty  that  I  had  felt  at  the 
time,  of  following  His  will  for  me.  But  He  spared  me  the 
greatest  sacrifice  of  all,  knowing,  perhaps,  that  I  should  have 
failed  again  in  courage.  My  father  and  mother  died  within 
three  months  of  one  another  that  same  year,  and  when  my 
father  lay  dying,  he  gave  me  his  blessing  and  consent,  and 
after  he  died  I  went  straight  to  the  Mother-house  in  Paris, 

[190] 


MOTHER  GERTRUDE 

where  it  was  then,  and  a  few  months  after  I  became  an 
orphan  they  received  me  into  the  novitiate  there." 

The  Superior  had  flushed  very  deeply,  and  her  voice  was 
shaken,  but  there  were  no  tears  in  her  steady  eyes.  Alex, 
trembling  with  passionate  sympathy,  and  with  a  gratitude 
so  intense  as  to  be  almost  painful,  for  the  confidence  be- 
stowed upon  her,  asked  the  inevitable  question  of  youth: 

"  Have  you  been  happy  ?  —  haven't  you  ever  regretted  it  ? 
Oh,  tell  me  if  you  are  really  and  truly  happy.'* 

"Absolutely,"  said  Mother  Gertrude  unhesitatingly. 
"  But  not  with  happiness  such  as  the  world  knows.  The 
word  has  acquired  a  different  meaning.  I  hardly  know  how 
to  convey  what  I  mean.  *  Grief  *  and  '  Joy '  mean  some- 
thing so  utterly  different  to  the  soul  in  religious  life,  and  to 
the  soul  still  in  the  world.  But  this  much  I  can  say  —  that 
I  have  never  known  one  instant  of  regret  —  never  anything 
but  the  deepest,  most  intense  gratitude  that  I  was  given 
strength  to  follow  my  vocation." 

There  was  a  long  silence,  Alex  watching  the  nun*s  fervent, 
flame-like  gaze,  in  which  her  young  idolatry  detected  none 
of  the  resolute  fanaticism  built  up  in  instinctive  self -pro- 
tection from  a  temperament  nfo  less  ardent  than  her  own. 

"  So  you  have  the  story  of  God's  great  mercy  to  one  poor 
soul,"  said  the  nun  at  last.  "  And  the  story  of  every  voca- 
tion is  equally  wonderful.  The  more  I  see  of  souls,  Alex 
—  and  a  Superior  hears  many  things  —  the  more  I  marvel 
at  the  ways  of  God's  love.  As  for  the  paths  by  which  He 
led  me  to  the  shelter  of  His  own  house,  I  shall  only  know  the 
full  wonder  of  it  all  when  I  see  Him  face  to  face.  I  have 
only  given  you  the  barest  outlines,  but  you  understand  a 
little?" 

"  Yes,"  breathed  Alex,  her  whole  being  shaken  by  an 
emotion  to  the  real  danger  of  which  she  was  entirely  blind. 

She  went  home  that  day  in  a  state  of  exaltation,  and  could 
not  have  told,  had  she  been  obliged  to  analyse  it,  how  far 
her  uplifted  condition  was  due  to  the  awakening  of  religious 
perceptions  hitherto  undreamed  of,  to  her  increasing  wor- 

[191] 


CONSEQUENCES 


ship  of  the  woman  who  had  roused  those  perceptions,  or  to 
her  exultant  sense  of  having  been  made  the  repository  of  a 
confidence  shared  with  no  other  human  being.  It  was  small 
wonder  that  Lady  Isabel  traced  the  rapt  look  on  Alex* 
face  to  its  source. 

"  But  most  girls  go  through  this  sort  of  thing  at  school,'* 
she  said  hopelessly.  "Of  course,  I  know  it  is  only  a  phase, 
Alex,  whatever  you  may  think  now.  But  why  can't  you  be 
more  like  other  people?  Why  insist  all  of  a  sudden  on 
makin'  poor  Holland  get  up  early  and  go  out  to  church 
with  you  on  Sunday,  when  I  always  like  the  maids  to  have 
a  rest?" 

"  Holland  doesn't  mind,"  said  Alex  sulkily.  She  could 
not  explain  to  her  mother  that  the  Superior  had  asked  a 
promise  of  her  that  she  would  not  again  willingly  miss  going 
to  Mass  on  Sundays. 

"If  it  was  a  reasonable  hour  I  shouldn't  object  so  much 
—  I  know  heaps  of  very  devout  Catholics  who  always  do  go 
to  Farm  Street  or  somewhere  every  Sunday,  and  I  wouldn't 
forbid  that,  Alex  —  though  why  you  should  suddenly  get 
frantic  about  religion  I  can't  imagine.  I  suppose  it  is  the 
influence  of  that  woman  you  have  been  seein'  at  the  con- 
vent." 

Alex  grew  scarlet,  to  her  own  dismay. 

"  I  thought  so,"  said  Lady  Isabel,  looking  annoyed.  "  I 
don't  want  to  prevent  your  doing  anything  that  does  give 
you  pleasure  —  Heaven  knows  it's  difficult  enough  to  find 
anything  yon  seem  to  care  about  in  the  very  least  —  but  I 
am  not  goin'  to  let  you  infect  Barbara." 

"  Oh,  no !  "  said  Alex,  with  sincere  horror  in  her  voice. 
The  last  thing  she  wanted  was  to  take  Barbara  to  the  con- 
vent. She  instinctively  dreaded  both  her  sister's  shrewd, 
cynical  judgment,  and  the  misrepresentations  that  she  al- 
ways somehow  contrived  to  make  of  all  Alex'  motives 
and  actions.  Alex  clung  to  the  thought  of  her  exclusive 
claim  on  Mother  Gertrude's  interest  and  sympathy  as  she 
had  never  yet  clung  to  any  other  possession. 

[192] 


MOTHER  GERTRUDE 


"  Well,  we  shall  be  leavin'  town  next  week,  and  there'll 
be  an  end  of  it.  When  I  said  you  might  go  to  the  con- 
vent, Alex,  I  never  meant  you  to  rush  off  there  three 
or  four  times  a  week,  as  you  know.  But  if  you  have 
taken  a  fancy  to  this  nun,  I  suppose  nothing  will  stop 
you." 

Lady  Isabel  sighed,  and  Alex,  from  the  glow  of  con- 
tentment that  possessed  her,  felt  able  to  speak  more  warmly 
and  natural  than  usual. 

"  I  don't  want  to  do  anything  to  vex  you,  mother,  truly, 
I  don't,  but  the  Superior  is  very  kind  to  me,  and  I  do  like 
going  to  see  her.  You  know  you  always  say  you  want  me 
to  do  whatever  makes  me  happiest."  She  spoke  urgently 
and  coaxingly,  like  the  impulsive,  impetuous  child  Alex, 
who  had  been  used  to  beg  for  favours  and  privileges  with 
all  the  confidence  of  a  favourite. 

Lady  Isabel  sighed  again,  but  her  face  wore  a  touched, 
softened  look,  and  she  said  resignedly,  "  So  long  as  you 
cheer  up,  and  don't  vex  your  father  by  seeming  doleful  and 
uninterested  in  things  ...  Of  course,  girls  now-a-days  do 
take  up  good  works  and  slummin'  and  all  that  sort  of 
thing  —  but  not  till  they  are  older  than  you  are,  darling, 
and  then  it's  generally  because  they  haven't  married  —  at 
least,"  added  Lady  Isabel  hurriedly,  "  people  are  sure  to 
say  it  is  that." 

"  I  don't  mind  if  they  do,"  said  Alex  proudly,  her  mind 
full  of  Mother  Gertrude's  story. 

"  Well,  I  suppose  you  must  do  as  you  like  —  girls  do, 
now-a-days." 

Alex  almost  instinctively  uttered  the  cry  that,  with  suc- 
cessive generations,  has  passed  from  appeal  to  rebellion, 
then  to  assertion,  and  from  the  defiance  of  that  assertion 
to  a  calm  statement  of  facts.  ''  It  is  my  life.  Can't  I  live 
my  own  life  ?  " 

"A  woman  who  doesn't  marry  and  who  has  eccentric 
tastes  doesn't  have  much  of  a  life.  I  could  never  bear 
thinking  of  it  for  any  of  you." 

[193] 


CONSEQUENCES 


Alex  was  rather  startled  at  the  sadness  in  her  mother's 
voice. 

"  But,  mother,  why?  Lots  of  girls  don*t  marry,  and  just 
live  at  home." 

"  As  long  as  there  is  a  home.  But  things  alter,  Alex. 
Your  father  and  I,  in  the  nature  of  things,  can't  go  on  livin' 
for  ever,  and  then  this  house  goes  to  Cedric.  There  is  no 
country  place,  as  you  know  —  your  great-grandfather  sold 
everything  he  could  lay  his  hands  on,  and  we  none  of  us 
have  ever  had  enough  ready  money  to  think  of  buyin'  even 
a  small  place  in  the  country." 

"  But  I  thought  we  were  quite  rich." 

Lady  Isabel  flushed  delicately. 

"  We  are  not  exactly  poor,  but  such  money  as  there  is 
mostly  came  from  my  father,  and  there  will  not  be  much 
after  my  death,"  she  confessed.  "  Most  of  it  will  be  money 
tied  up  for  Archie,  poor  little  boy,  because  he  is  the  younger 
son,  and  your  grandfather  thought  that  was  the  proper  way 
to  arrange  it.  It  was  all  settled  when  you  were  quite  little 
children  —  in  fact,  before  Pamela  was  born  or  thought  of 
—  and  your  father  naturally  wanted  all  he  could  hope  to 
leave  to  go  to  Cedric,  so  that  he  might  be  able  to  live  on 
here,  whatever  happened." 

"  But  what  about  Barbara  and  me  ?  Wasn't  it  rather  un- 
fair to  want  the  boys  to  have  everything?  " 

"  Your  father  said,  *  The  girls  will  marry,  of  course.' 
There  will  be  a  certain  sum  for  each  of  you  on  your  wedding- 
day,  but  there's  no  question  of  either  of  you  being  able  to 
afford  to  remain  unmarried,  and  live  decently.  You  won't 
have  enough  to  make  it  possible,"  said  Lady  Isabel  very 
simply. 

"  But  one  of  us  might  want  to  marry  a  very  poor  man." 

"  A  man  in  your  own  rank  of  life,  my  dear  child,  could 
hardly  propose  to  you  unless  he  had  enough  to  support  you. 
Of  course,  we  don't  wish  either  of  you  to  feel  that  you  must 
marry  for  money,  ever,  but  at  the  same  time  I  think  you 
ought  to  be  warned.    Girls  very  often  go  gaily  on,  thinkin' 

[194] 


MOTHER  GERTRUDE 


it  will  be  time  enough  to  settle  later,  and  then  something 
happens,  and  they  find  they  have  no  money  of  their  own, 
and  perhaps  no  home  left.  For  a  few  years,  perhaps,  it's 
possible  to  go  on  paying  visits,  and  staying  with  other  people, 
but  it's  never  very  pleasant  to  feel  one  has  no  alternative, 
and  the  sort  of  environment  where  a  man  looks  for  his  wife 
is  in  her  own  sheltered  home,"  said  Lady  Isabel  with  em- 
phasis. 

Alex  felt  rather  dismayed,  though  less  so  than  she  would 
have  done  before  her  intimacy  at  the  convent  had  given  her 
glimpses  of  another  possible  standard. 

She  paid  one  more  visit  to  Mother  Gertrude  before  leaving 
London. 

This  time  she  was  kept  waiting  for  a  while  in  the  parlour, 
so  that  she  began  to  wish  that  she  had  not  told  Holland  to 
call  for  her  in  an  hour's  time.  She  never  dared  stay  any 
longer,  partly  from  a  vague  impression  that  Mother  Ger- 
trude had  a  good  deal  to  do,  and  partly  from  a  very  distinct 
certainty  that  Lady  Isabel  always  noted  the  length  of  her 
visits  to  the  convent,  no  less  than  their  frequency. 

She  looked  round  the  ugly  room  rather  disconsolately 
and  fingered  the  books  on  the  table.  They  seemed  very  un- 
interesting, and  were  mostly  in  French.  One  slim  volume, 
more  attractively  bound  than  the  others,  drew  her  attention 
for  a  moment,  and  she  turned  idly  to  the  title-page. 

"  Notre  Mere  Fondatrice  Esquisse  de  piete  filiale." 

Alex  smiled  at  the  wording,  which  she  read  in  the  im- 
perfect literal  translation  of  an  indifferent  French  scholar, 
and  turned  to  the  next  leaf. 

Two  photographs  facing  one  another  were  reproduced  on 
either  page. 

The  first  portrait  was  of  a  young  woman  standing  by  a 
table  in  a  stiffly  artificial  attitude,  with  enormously  wide 
skirts  billowing  round  her,  decked  with  elaborate,  and,  to 
Alex'  eyes  meaningless,  trimmings  of  some  dark,  narrow 
ribbon  that  might  have  been  velvet.  She  wore  long,  dan- 
gling ear-rings,  and  her  abundant  plaits  of  dark  hair  were 

[195] 


CONSEQUENCES 


gathered  into  the  nape  of  her  neck,  confined  by  a  coarse- 
fibred  net.  The  face,  turned  over  one  shoulder,  was  heavy 
rather  than  handsome,  with  strongly  marked  features  and 
big,  sombre,  dark  eyes. 

It  was  with  a  little  thrill  approaching  to  awe  that  Alex 
recognized  her  again  on  the  next  page  in  the  veil  and  habit 
of  the  Order. 

The  girth  of  the  figure  had  increased,  and  the  face  showed 
traces  of  having  been  heavily  scored  by  the  passing  of  some 
twenty  or  thirty  years,  but  this  time  the  strong  mouth  was 
smiling  frankly,  and  the  eyes  had  lost  their  brooding  look 
and  were  directed  upwards  with  an  ardent  and  animated 
expression.  The  hands,  so  plump  as  to  show  mere  indents 
in  place  of  knuckles  across  their  remarkable  breadth,  grasped 
a  small  crucifix. 

Under  the  first  portrait  Alex  read  the  inscription  "  Angela 
Predoux  a  dixhuit  ans." 

Beneath  the  picture  of  the  nun,  Angele's  not  very  distin- 
guished patronymic  had  been  replaced  by  the  title  of  *'  Mere 
Candide  da  Sacre  Cceur,"  and  still  supplemented  by  the  an- 
nouncement : 

"  Fondatrice  et  Superieure  de  son  Ordre." 

Old-fashioned  though  the  dress  in  the  photograph  looked 
to  Alex'  eyes,  she  was  yet  astonished  that  any  woman  so 
nearly  of  her  own  time  should  have  founded  a  religious 
Order.  She  had  always  supposed  vaguely  that  the  educa- 
tional variety  of  religious  Orders  which  she  knew  flour- 
ished in  Europe  had  taken  their  existence  from  the  old- 
established  Dominican  or  Benedictine  communities. 

But  it  seemed  now  that  a  new  foundation  might  come 
into  being  under  the  auspice  of  so  youthful  and  plebeian- 
seeming  a  pioneer  as  Angele  Predoux. 

Alex  wondered  how  she  had  set  about  it.  A  grotesque 
fancy  flitted  through  her  mind  as  to  the  fashion  in  which 
Sir  Francis  and  Lady  Isabel  might  be  expected  to  receive 
an  announcement  that  Alex  or  Barbara  felt  called  upon  to 
found  a  new  religious  Order. 

[196] 


MOTHER  GERTRUDE 


Alex  could  not  help  dismissing  the  imaginary  situation 
thus  conjured  up  with  a  slight  shudder,  and  the  conviction 
that  Angele  Predoux,  if  her  position  had  been  in  any  degree 
tenable,  must  have  been  an  orphan. 

Wishing  all  the  time  that  Mother  Gertrude  would  come 
to  her,  she  glanced  through  the  first  few  pages  of  the  book. 

It  somehow  slightly  amazed  her  to  read  of  the  Founder 
of  a  religious  Order  as  a  little  girl,  who  had,  like  herself, 
passed  through  the  successive  phases  of  babyhood,  school- 
days and  the  society  of  her  compeers  in  the  world. 

**  And  to  what  end,"  inquired  the  author  of  the  esquisse, 
when  Angele  Predoux  had  celebrated  her  twenty-first  birth- 
day at  a  ball  given  on  her  behalf  by  an  adoring  grand- 
father—"to  what  end?" 

Alex  repeated  the  question  to  herself,  and  marvelled 
rather  vaguely  as  various  replies  floated  through  her  mind. 
Life  all  led  to  something,  she  supposed,  and  for  the  first 
time  it  occurred  to  her  that  she  herself  had  never  aimed 
at  anything  save  the  possession  of  that  which  she  called 
happiness.  What  had  been  Angele  Predoux's  aim  ?  —  what 
was  that  of  Mother  Gertrude?  Certainly  not  human  hap- 
piness. 

Life  was  disappointing  enough,  Alex  reflected  drearily. 
One  was  always  waiting,  always  looking  forward  to  the 
next  stage,  as  though  it  must  reveal  the  secret  solution  to 
the  great  question  of  why.  Alex'  thoughts  turned  to  Noel 
Cardew  and  the  sick  misery  and  disappointment  engendered 
by  her  engagement. 

The  door  opened  and  she  sprang  up. 

"  Oh,  I  am  so  glad  you  have  come  at  last." 

"  Were  you  getting  impatient?  I'm  sorry,  but  you  know 
our  time  is  not  our  own." 

The  nun  sat  down,  and  Alex  flung,  rather  than  sat  her- 
self in  her  favourite  position  on  the  floor,  her  arms  resting 
on  the  Superior's  knee. 

"  What  is  the  matter?*"  asked  Mother  Gertrude.  **  What 
was  troubling  you  just  before  I  came  in,  Alex?  " 

[197] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  You  always  know,"  said  Alex,  in  quick,  passionate  recog- 
nition of  an  intuition  that  it  had  hitherto  been  her  share  to 
exercise  on  behalf  of  another,  never  to  receive. 

"  Your  face  is  not  so  very  difficult  to  read,  and  I  think 
I  know  you  pretty  well  by  this  time.'* 

**  Better  than  any  one,"  said  Alex,  in  all  good  faith,  and 
unaware  that  certain  aspects  of  herself,  such  as  she  showed 
to  Barbara,  or  to  her  father  and  mother  when  they  angered 
or  frightened  her,  had  never  yet  been  called  forth  in  the 
Superior's  presence,  and  probably  never  would  be. 

**  Well,  what  was  it  ?    Was  it  our  Mother  Foundress  ?  " 

"  How  did  you  know  ?  "  gasped  Alex,  unseeing  of  the 
still  open  book  lying  on  the  table. 

Mother  Gertrude  did  not  refer  to  it.  She  passed  her 
hand  slowly  over  the  upturned  head.  Alex  had  thrown  off 
her  hat. 

"  I  was  looking  at  the  picture  of  her.  It  seemed  so  diffi- 
cult to  realize  that  any  one  who  actually  formed  a  new  re- 
ligious Order  could  live  almost  now-a-days  and  be  a  girl 
just  like  myself." 

"  God  bestows  His  gifts  where  He  pleases !  Sometimes 
the  call  sounds  where  one  might  least  expect  to  hear  it  — 
in  the  midst  of  the  world,  and  worldly  pleasure,  sometimes 
in  the  midst  of  the  disappointment  and  grief  of  the  world." 

Alex  did  not  speak,  but  continued  to  gaze  up  at  the  nun. 
Mother  Gertrude  went  on  speaking  slowly: 

"  You  see,  Alex,  sometimes  it  is  necessary  for  a  soul,  a 
loving  and  undisciplined  one  especially,  to  learn  the  utter 
worthlessness  of  human  love,  in  order  that  it  may  turn  and 
see  the  Divine  Love  waiting  for  it." 

"  But  all  human  love  isn't  worthless,"  said  Alex  almost 
pleadingly,  her  eyes  dilating. 

"  Surely  a  finite  love  is  worthless  compared  to  an  In- 
finite," said  the  nun  gently.  "We  can  hardly  imagine  it, 
Alex,  with  our  little,  limited  understanding,  but  there  is 
a  love  that  satisfies  the  most  exacting  of  us  —  asking,  in- 
deed all,  and  yet  willing  to  accept  so  little,  and,  above  all, 

[198] 


MOTHER  GERTRUDE 


giving  with  a  completeness  to  which  no  human  sympathy, 
however  deep  and  tender,  can  ever  attain." 

Alex  heard  only  the  ring  of  utter  conviction  permeating 
every  word  uttered  in  that  deep,  ardent  voice,  and  listening 
to  the  mystic,  heard  nothing  of  the  fanatic. 

**  But  not  every  one,"  she  stammered. 

The  nun  did  not  pretend  to  misunderstand  her. 

"  Many  are  called,"  she  said,  "  but  few  are  chosen.  Do 
you  want  me  to  tell  you  a  little  of  all  that  is  promised  to 
those  who  leave  all  things  for  His  sake  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Alex,  her  heart  throbbing  strangely. 


[199] 


XVII 

Lawn-Tennis 

LOOKING  back  long  afterwards,  to  that  last  week  of 
the  brilliant  Jubilee  season  in  London  and  to  the 
two  months  that  followed,  spent  in  a  house  near 
Windsor,  taken  principally  to  gratify  Cedric's  passion  for 
tennis,  Alex  could  never  remember  whether  the  first  definite 
suggestion  of  her  entering  the  religious  life  had  come  from 
herself  or  from  Mother  Gertrude. 

Neither  she  nor  Barbara  had  been  taken  to  Cowes  that 
year,  and  the  first  fortnight  spent  at  the  Windsor  house, 
which  stood  in  a  large,  rambling  garden,  full  of  roses,  close 
to  the  river,  reminded  her  strangely  of  the  summer  holidays 
they  had  spent  together  as  children. 

Cedric,  very  sunburnt  and  sturdy,  played  tennis  with  a 
sort  of  concentrated,  cumulative  enthusiasm,  took  part  in 
innumerable  cricket  matches  —  possessing  already  a  very 
real  reputation  in  Eton  circles  as  a  promising  slow  bowler 
and  a  very  reliable  bat  —  and  occasionally  took  his  sisters  on 
the  river.  Barbara,  on  whom  late  nights  in  London  had 
told,  slept  half  the  morning,  and  then  practised  "  serves  "  at 
tennis  assiduously  under  her  brother's  coaching,  while  Pa- 
mela, already  a  hoyden,  romped  screaming  over  the  lawn, 
in  a  fashion  that  in  Alex'  and  Barbara's  nursery  days  would 
have  met  with  instant  and  drastic  punishment.  But  old 
Nurse  was  lenient  with  the  last  and  youngest  of  her  charges, 
and  now-a-days  her  guardianship  was  almost  a  nominal  one 
only. 

Alex  was  preoccupied,  aimlessly  brooding  over  one  ab- 
sorbing interest,  as  in  the  summer  holidays  that  the  Clare 
children  had  spent  at  Fiveapples  Farm. 

Just  as  then  she  had  waited  and  looked  and  longed  for 

[200] 


LAWN'TENN  IS 


Queenie's  letters,  so  now  she  waited  for  those  of  Mother 
Gertrude. 

Day  after  sunlit  day,  she  stood  at  the  bottom  of  the  strag- 
gling, over-grown  paddock  that  gave  on  to  the  dusty  high- 
road, and  waited  for  the  afternoon  post  to  be  delivered. 

She  was  often  disappointed,  but  never  with  the  sick  in- 
tensity of  dismay  that  had  marked  every  fresh  stage  in  her 
realization  of  Queenie  Torrance's  indifference  to  friendship. 

Mother  Gertrude  only  wrote  when  she  could  find  a  little 
spare  time,  and  left  by  far  the  greater  number  of  Alex' 
daily  outpourings  to  her  unanswered,  but  she  read  them  all  — 
she  understood,  Alex  told  herself  in  a  passion  of  pure  grati- 
tude —  and  she  thought  of  her  child  and  prayed  daily  for  her. 

Her  letters  began,  "  My  dearest  child,"  and  Alex  treas- 
ured the  words,  and  the  few  earnest  counsels  and  exhorta- 
tions that  the  letters  contained. 

It  was  much  easier  to  carry  out  those  exhortations  at 
Windsor  than  it  had  been  in  London.  Alex  went  almost 
every  day  to  a  small  Catholic  church,  of  which  Holland 
had  discovered  the  vicinity,  and  sometimes  spent  the  whole 
afternoon  in  the  drowsy  heat  of  the  little  building,  that  was 
almost  always  empty. 

Her  thoughts  dwelt  vaguely  on  her  own  future,  and  on 
the  craving  necessity  for  self-expression,  of  which  Mother 
Gertrude  had  made  her  more  intensely  aware  than  she  knew. 
Could  it  be  that  her  many  failures  were  to  prove  only  the 
preliminary  to  an  immense  success,  predestined  for  her  out 
of  Eternity?  The  allurement  of  the  thought  soothed  Alex 
with  an  infinite  sweetness. 

When  Sir  Francis  and  his  wife  joined  the  Windsor  party, 
Lady  Isabel  exclaimed  with  satisfaction  at  her  daughters' 
looks.  "  Only  a  fortnight,  and  it's  done  such  wonders  for 
you  both!  Barbara  was  like  a  little,  washed-out  rag,  and 
now  she's  quite  blooming.  You've  got  more  colour  too, 
Alex,  darling,  and  I'm  so  thankful  to  see  that  you're  holdin' 
yourself  rather  better.  Evidently  country  air  and  quiet  was 
what  you  both  needed." 

[201] 


CONSEQUENCES 


Nevertheless,  Lady  Isabel  lost  no  time  in  issuing  and 
accepting  various  invitations  that  led  to  luncheons,  tennis- 
parties  and  occasional  dinners  with  the  innumerable  ac- 
quaintances whom  she  immediately  discovered  to  be  within 
walking  or  driving  distance. 

It  annoyed  Alex  unreasonably  that  her  liberty  should  be 
interfered  with  thus  by  entertainments  which  afforded  her 
no  pleasure.  She  ungraciously  conceded  her  place  to  Bar- 
bara as  often  as  possible,  and  went  off  to  seek  the  solitude 
of  the  chapel  with  an  inward  conviction  of  her  own  great 
unworldliness  and  spirituality. 

Barbara  showed  plenty  of  eagerness  to  avail  herself  of 
the  opportunities  thus  passed  on  to  her.  She  had  sedulously 
cultivated  a  great  enthusiasm  for  tennis,  and  by  dint  of 
sheer  hard  practice  had  actually  acquired  a  certain  forceful 
skill,  making  up  for  a  natural  lack  of  suppleness  that  de- 
prived her  play  of  any  grace. 

Her  rather  manufactured  dispays  of  enjoyment,  which 
had  none  of  the  spontaneous  vitality  of  little  Pamela's  noisy, 
bounding  high  spirits,  were  always  in  sufficient  contrast  to 
Alex*  supine  self -absorption  to  render  them  doubly  agree- 
able to  Sir  Francis  and  Lady  Isabel. 

"  I  like  to  take  my  little  daughter  about  and  see  her  en- 
joying herself,"  Sir  Francis  would  say,  with  more  wistful- 
ness  than  pleasure  in  his  voice  sometimes,  as  though  wish- 
ing that  Barbara^s  gaiety  could  have  been  allied  to  Alex' 
prettier  face  and  position  as  his  eldest  daughter. 

It  was  only  in  his  two  sons  —  Cedric,  with  his  sort  of 
steady  brilliance,  and  idle,  happy-go-lucky  Archie,  by  far 
the  best-looking  of  the  Clare  children  —  that  Sir  Francis 
found  unalloyed  satisfaction. 

Pamela  was  the  modern  child  in  embryo,  and  disconcerted 
more  than  she  pleased  him. 

It  was  principally  to  gratify  Cedric  that  Lady  Isabel 
arranged  a  tennis  tournament  for  the  end  of  the  summer, 
on  a  hot  day  of  late  September  that  was  to  remain  in  Alex' 

[202] 


LAWN'TENNIS 


memory  as  a  milestone,  unrecognized  at  the  time,  marking 
the  end  of  an  era. 

"Thank  Heaven  it's  fine,"  piously  breathed  Barbara  at 
the  window  in  the  morning.  "  I  shall  wear  my  white 
pique." 

Alex  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

Neither  she  nor  Barbara  would  have  dreamed  of  in- 
augurating a  new  form  of  toilette  without  previous  refer- 
ence to  Lady  Isabel,  and  Barbara's  small  piece  of  self- 
assertion  was  merely  designed  to  emphasize  the  butterfly 
role  which  she  was  embracing  with  so  much  determination. 

**  Of  course,  you'll  wear  your  pique.  Mother  said  so," 
Alex  retorted,  conscious  of  childishness.  "  You've  worn  a 
pique  at  every  tennis  party  you've  been  to." 

"  Well,  this  is  a  new  pique,"  said  Barbara,  who  invariably 
found  a  last  word  for  any  discussion,  and  she  went  down- 
stairs singing  in  a  small,  tuneful  chirp  made  carefully  care- 
less. 

"Who  is  coming?"  Alex  inquired,  having  taken  no  part 
whatever  in  the  lengthy  discussions  as  to  partners  and  handi- 
caps which  had  engrossed  Cedric  and  Barbara  for  the  past 
ten  days. 

Cedric  looked  up,  frowning,  from  the  list  on  which  he 
was  still  engaged.  He  did  not  speak,  however;  but  Bar- 
bara said  very  sweetly,  and  with  an  emphasis  so  nearly  im- 
perceptible that  only  her  sister  could  appreciate  it : 

"  Oh,  nobody  in  whom  you're  at  all  specially  interested, 
I'm  afraid." 

Alex  did  not  miss  the  implication,  and  coloured  angrily. 

"  I'm  going  to  play  with  that  artist,  the  one  staying  with 
the  Russells.  He  isn't  at  all  a  good  player,"  said  Barbara 
smoothly. 

"  Then  why  are  you  playing  with  him  ?  " 

Barbara  smiled  rather  self-consciously.  "  It  would  hardly 
do  to  annex  the  best  partners  for  ourselves,  would  it  ?  "  she 
inquired.    "And  we're  trying  to  equalize  the  setts  as  far 

[203] 


CONSEQUENCES 


as  possible.  Cedric  has  to  play  with  the  youngest  Russell 
girl,  who's  too  utterly  hopeless." 

"  I  shall  take  all  her  balls,"  said  Cedric  calmly,  "  so  it'll 
be  all  right.  She  doesn't  mind  any  amount  of  poaching. 
We  shall  lose  on  her  serves,  of  course,  but  that  may  be  just 
as  well." 

"Why,  dear?"  innocently  inquired  Lady  Isabel. 

"  I  don't  think  it  looks  well  to  carry  off  a  prize  at  one's 
own  show,"  Cedric  said  candidly. 

"  I  should  rather  love  the  Indian  bangles,"  owned  Barbara, 
glancing  enviously  at  the  array  of  silver  trifles  that  consti- 
tuted the  prizes. 

"  You  won't  get  them,  my  child  —  not  with  McAllister 
as  your  partner.  You'll  see,  Lady  Essie  Cameron  will 
get  them,  or  one  of  the  Nottinghams,  if  they're  in  good 
form." 

"  Peter  Nottingham  is  playing  with  you,  Alex,"  Barbara 
informed  her. 

"That  boy!" 

"  Nottingham  is  nearly  eighteen,  let  me  tell  you,"  said 
Cedric  in  tones  of  offence,  "  and  plays  an  extraordinarily 
good  game  of  tennis.  In  fact,  he'll  be  about  the  best  man 
there  probably,  which  is  why  I've  had  to  give  him  to  you 
for  a  partner.  As  you've  not  taken  the  trouble  to  practise 
a  single  stroke  the  whole  summer,  I  should  advise  you  to 
keep  out  of  his  way,  and  let  him  stand  up  to  the  net  and 
take  every  blessed  thing  he  can  get. 

"  It'll  be  a  nice  thing  for  me,"  said  Cedric  bitterly,  "  to 
have  to  apologize  to  Nottingham  for  making  him  play  with 
the  worst  girl  there,  and  that  my  sister." 

"  Cedric,"  said  his  mother  gently,  "  I'm  sure  I've  seen 
Alex  play  very  nicely." 

Alex  was  grateful,  but  she  wished  that,  like  Barbara,  she 
had  practised  her  strokes  under  Cedric's  tuition. 

It  was  characteristic  of  her  that  when  the  occasion  for 
excelling  had  actually  come,  she  should  passionately  desire 
to  excel,  whereas  during  previous  weeks  of  supine  indiffer- 

[204] 


LAWN-TENNIS 


ence,  it  had  never  seemed  to  her  worth  while  to  exert  her- 
self in  the  attainment  of  proficiency. 

After  breakfast  she  went  out  to  the  tennis-court,  freshly 
marked  and  rolled,  and  wondered  if  it  would  be  worth  while 
to  make  Archie  send  her  over  some  balls,  but  Cedric  hurried 
up  in  a  business-like  way  and  ordered  everybody  off  the 
ground  while  he  instructed  the  garden  boy  in  the  science 
of  putting  up  a  new  net. 

Alex  moved  disconsolately  away,  and  tried  to  tell  herself 
that  none  of  these  trivial,  useless  enthusiasms  which  they 
regarded  so  earnestly  were  of  any  real  importance. 

She  wandered  down  to  the  chapel  and  sat  there,  for  the 
most  part  pondering  over  her  own  infinitesimal  chances  of 
success  in  the  coming  tournament,  and  thinking  how  much 
she  would  like  to  astonish  and  disconcert  Barbara  and  Cedric 
by  a  sudden  display  of  skill. 

It  was  true  that  she  had  not  practised,  and  was  at  no 
time  a  strong  player,  but  she  had  sometimes  shown  an  erratic 
brilliance  in  a  sudden,  back-handed  stroke  and,  like  all  weak 
people,  she  had  an  irrational  belief  in  sudden  and  improb- 
able accessions  of  luck. 

Needless  to  say,  this  belief  was  not  justified. 

Peter  Nottingham,  a  tall,  shy  boy  with  a  smashing  service 
and  tremendous  length  of  reach,  was  intent  on  nothing  but 
victory,  and  though  he  muttered  politely,  "  Not  all,  *m 
sure,"  at  Alex'  preliminary,  faltering  announcement  of  her 
own  bad  play,  the  very  sense  of  his  keenness  made  her  nerv- 
ous. 

She  missed  every  stroke,  gave  an  aimless  dash  that  just 
succeeded  in  stopping  a  ball  that  would  obviously  have 
been  "  out,"  and  felt  her  nerve  going. 

Just  as  success  always  led  her  on  to  excel,  so  failure  re- 
duced her  capabilities  to  a  minimum.    Her  heart  sank. 

They  lost  the  first  game. 

"  Will  you  serve  ? "  enquired  Peter  Nottingham  politely. 

"  Td  rather  you  did." 

Alex  was  infinitely  relieved  that  responsibility  should  mo- 

[205] 


CONSEQUENCES 


mentarily  be  off  her  own  shoulders,  but  young  Nottingham's 
swift  service  was  as  swiftly  returned  by  Lady  Essie  Cam- 
eron, an  excellent  player,  and  one  who  had  no  hesitation  in 
smashing  the  ball  on  to  the  farthest  corner  of  the  court, 
where  Alex  stood,  obviously  nervous  and  unready. 

She  failed  to  reach  it,  and  could  have  cried  with  mortifi- 
cation. 

Thanks  to  Nottingham,  however,  they  won  the  game. 

It  was  their  solitary  victory. 

Alex  served  one  fault  after  another,  and  at  last  ceased 
even  to  murmur  perfunctory  apologies  as  she  and  her  part- 
ner, whose  boyish  face  expressed  scarlet  vexation,  crossed 
over  the  court.  She  was  not  clear  as  to  the  system  on  which 
Cedric  had  arranged  the  tournament,  but  presently  she  saw 
that  the  losing  couples  would  drop  out  one  by  one  until  the 
champions,  having  won  the  greatest  number  of  setts,  would 
finally  challenge  any  remaining  couples  whom  they  had  not 
yet  encountered. 

"  I  say,  I'm  afraid  this  is  pretty  rotten  for  you,  old  chap," 
she  heard  Cedric,  full  of  concern,  say  to  her  partner. 

"  Perhaps  we  may  get  another  look  in  at  the  finals,"  said 
Peter  Nottingham,  with  gloomy  civility. 

He  and  Alex,  with  several  others,  sat  and  watched  the 
progress  of  the  games.  It  gave  Alex  a  shock  of  rather  un- 
pleasant surprise  to  see  the  improvement  in  Barbara^s 
play. 

Her  service,  an  overhand  one  in  which  very  few  girl  play- 
ers were  then  proficient,  gave  rise  to  several  compliments. 
Her  partner  was  the  good-looking  artist,  Ralph  McAllister. 

"  Well  played  1 "  he  shouted  enthusiastically,  again  and 
again. 

Once  or  twice,  when  Barbara  missed  a  stroke,  Alex  heard 
him  exclaim  softly,  "  Oh,  hard  luck!     Well  tried,  partner." 

Alex,  tired  and  mortified,  almost  angry,  wondered  why 
Fate  should  have  assigned  to  her  as  a  partner  a  manner- 
less young  cub  like  Nottingham,  who  thought  of  nothing 
but  the  horrid  game.     It  did  not  occur  to  her  that  perhaps 

[206] 


LAWN-TENNIS 


McAllister  would  not  have  been  moved  to  the  same  en- 
thusiasm had  she,  instead  of  Barbara,  been  playing  with 
him. 

The  combination,  however,  was  beaten  by  Cedric  and  the 
youngest  of  the  Russell  girls,  a  pretty,  roundabout  child, 
who  left  all  the  play  to  her  partner  and  screamed  with  ex- 
citement and  admiration  almost  every  time  he  hit  the  ball. 

It  was  quite  evident  that  the  final  contest  lay  between 
them  and  Lady  Essie  Cameron,  a  strapping,  muscular  Scotch 
girl,  whose  partner  kept  discreetly  to  the  background,  and 
allowed  her  to  stand  up  to  the  net  and  volley  every  pos- 
sible ball  that  came  over. 

When  she  and  her  partner  had  emerged  victorious  from 
every  contest,  nothing  remained  but  for  Cedric  and  Miss 
Russell  to  make  good  their  claim  to  the  second  place  by 
conquering  the  remaining  couples. 

Alex  played  worse  than  ever,  and  the  sett  was  six  games 
to  love.  As  she  went  past,  Cedric  muttered  to  her  low  and 
viciously : 

"Are  you  doing  it  on  purpose?" 

She  knew  that  he  was  angry  and  mortified  at  his  friend 
Nottingham's  disappointment,  but  his  words  struck  her  like 
a  blow. 

She  stood  with  her  back  to  every  one,  gulping  hard. 

"  You  didn't  have  a  chance,  old  man,"  said  a  sympathetic 
youth  behind  her.  *' They  might  have  arranged  the  setts 
better." 

Peter  Nottingham  growled  in  reply. 

"  Who  was  the  girl  you  were  playing  with  ?  " 

Alex  realized  that  her  white  frock  and  plain  straw  hat 
were  indistinguishable  from  all  the  other  white  frocks  and 
straw  hats  present,  seen  from  the  back. 

"  Hush,"  said  young  Nottingham  more  cautiously.  "  That 
was  one  of  the  girls  of  the  house,  a  Miss  Clare." 

"  Can't  play  a  bit,  can  she  ?  The  other  one  wasn't  bad. 
Didn't  one  of  them  give  poor  Cardew  the  chuck  or  some- 
thing?" 

[207] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  Oh,  shut  up/*  Nottingham  rebuked  the  indiscreet  one. 
"  Much  more  likely  he  chucked  her,  if  you  ask  me." 

Alex  could  bear  the  risk  of  their  discovering  her  prox- 
imity no  longer,  and  hastened  into  the  house. 

It  was  the  first  afternoon  since  her  arrival  at  Windsor 
that  she  had  not  looked  eagerly  for  the  afternoon  post. 

The  letter,  a  square,  bluish  envelope  of  cheap  glazed 
paper,  caught  her  eye  almost  accidentally  on  the  table  in  the 
hall. 

She  recognized  it  instantly,  and  snatching  it  up,  opened 
and  read  it  standing  there,  with  the  scent  of  a  huge  bowl  of 
late  roses  pervading  the  whole  hall,  and  the  distant  sound  of 
cries  and  laughter  faintly  penetrating  to  her  ears  from  the 
tennis-court  and  garden  outside. 

Mother  Gertrude's  writing  showed  all  the  disciplined  regu- 
larity characteristic  of  a  convent,  with  the  conventional 
French  slope  and  long-tailed  letters,  the  careful  making  of 
which  Alex  herself  had  had  instilled  into  her  in  Belgium. 

The  phraseology  of  the  Superior's  letter  was  conventional, 
too,  and  even  her  most  earnest  exhortations,  when  deliv- 
ered in  writing,  bore  the  marks  of  restraint. 

But  this  letter  was  different. 

Alex  knew  it  at  once,  even  before  she  had  read  it  to  the 
end  of  the  four  closely-covered  sheets. 

''Sept.  30,  1897. 
"  My  dearest  Child, 

"  There  are  many  letters  from  you  waiting  to  be  an- 
swered, and  I  thank  you  for  them  all,  and  for  the  confidence 
you  bestow  upon  me,  which  touches  me  very  deeply. 

"  Now  at  last  I  am  able  to  sit  down  and  feel  that  I  shall 
have  a  quiet  half-hour  in  which  to  talk  to  my  child,  although 
I  dare  not  hope  that  it  will  be  an  uninterrupted  one ! 

"  So  the  life  you  are  leading  does  not  satisfy  you,  Alex? 
You  tell  me  that  you  come  in  from  the  gaieties  and 
amusements  and  little  parties,  which,  after  all,  are  natural 
to  your  age  and  to  the  position  in  which  God  has  placed  you, 
full  of  dissatisfaction  and  restlessness  of  mind. 

[208] 


LAWN^TENNIS 


"  Alex,  my  dear  child,  I  am  not  surprised.  You  will  never 
find  that  what  the  world  can  offer  will  satisfy  you.  Most 
of  us  may  have  known  similar  moments  of  fatigue,  of  dis- 
illusionment, but  to  a  heart  and  mind  like  yours,  above  all, 
it  is  inconceivable  that  anything  less  than  Infinity  itself 
should  bring  any  lasting  joy.  Let  me  say  what  I  have  so 
often  thought,  after  our  conversations  together  in  my  little 
room  —  there  is  only  one  way  of  peace  for  such  a  nature 
as  yours.     Give  up  all,  and  you  shall  find  all. 

"  I  have  thought  and  prayed  over  this  letter,  my  little 
Alex,  and  am  not  writing  lightly.  You  will  forgive  me  if 
I  am  going  too  far,  but  I  long  to  see  my  child  at  rest,  and 
for  such  as  you  there  is  only  one  true  rest  here. 

"  Human  love  has  failed  you,  and  you  are  left  alone,  with 
all  your  impulses  of  sacrifice  and  devotion  to  another 
thrown  back  upon  yourself.  But,  Alex,  there  is  One  to 
whom  all  the  love  and  tenderness  of  which  you  know  your- 
self capable  can  be  offered  —  and  He  wants  it  Weak 
though  you  are,  and  all-perfect  though  He  is.  He  wants  you. 

"  I  don't  think  there  has  been  a  day  since  I  first  heard 
His  call,  when  I  have  not  marvelled  at  the  wonder  of  it  — 
at  the  infinite  honour  done  to  me. 

"  If  I  have  told  you  more  of  the  secret  story  of  my  voca- 
tion than  to  any  one  else,  it  has  been  for  a  reason  which  I 
think  you  have  guessed.  I  have  seen  for  a  long  while  what 
it  was  that  God  asked  of  you,  Alex,  and  I  believe  the  time 
has  come  when  you  will  see  it  too.  Your  last  letter,  with  its 
cry  of  loneliness,  and  the  bitter  sense  of  being  unwanted,  has 
made  me  almost  sure  of  it. 

"  You  are  not  unwanted  —  you  need  never  be  lonely  again. 
*  Leave  all  things  and  follow  Me!*  If  you  hear  that  call, 
which  I  believe  with  all  my  heart  to  have  sounded  for  you, 
can  you  disobey  it?  Will  you  not  rather,  forsaking  all 
things,  follow  Him,  and  in  so  doing,  find  all  things  ?  '* 

"  I  have  written  a  long  while,  and  cannot  go  on  now. 
God  bless  you  again  and  again,  and  help  you  to  be  truly 
generous  with  Him. 

[209] 


CONSEQUENCES 


*' Write  to  me  as  fully  as  you  will,  and  count  upon  my 
poor  prayers  and  my  most  earnest  religious  affection.  I 
need  not  add  come  and  see  me  again  on  your  return  to  Lon- 
don. My  child  will  always  find  the  warmest  of  welcomes ! 
It  was  not  for  nothing  that  you  came  into  the  convent  chapel 
to  find  rest  and  quiet,  that  summer  day,  my  Alex  1 
"  Your  devoted  Mother  in  Christ, 

"  Gertrude  of  the  Holy  Cross." 

Alex  stood  almost  as  though  transfixed.  The  letter  hardly 
came  as  a  surprise.  She  had  long  since  known  subcon- 
sciously what  was  in  the  Superior's  mind,  and  yet  the 
expression  of  it  produced  in  her  a  sort  of  stupefaction. 

Could  it  be  true  ? 

Was  there  really  such  a  refuge  for  her,  somewhere  a  need 
of  her,  and  of  that  passionate  desire  for  self-devotion  that 
was  so  essential  a  part  of  her? 

The  thought  brought  with  it  a  tingling  admixture  of  bitter 
disappointment  and  of  poignant  rapture. 

She  realized  almost  despairingly  that  she  could  no  longer 
stand  in  the  hall  clasping  Mother  Gertrude's  letter  uncon- 
sciously to  her. 

Already  light,  flying  feet  were  approaching  from  the  gar- 
den. 

"  I  came  to  look  for  you,  Alex,"  said  Barbara  breathlessly 
in  the  doorway.  "  They're  going  to  give  the  prizes.  What 
are  you  doing  ?  " 

**  I'm  coming,"  said  Alex  mechanically.  She  was  rather 
surprised  that  Barbara  should  have  taken  the  trouble  to 
come  for  her. 

"  Did  mother  send  you  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Barbara  simply ;  "  but  I  thought  it  would  look 
very  bad  if  you  kept  out  of  the  way  of  it  because  you  hap- 
pened to  play  badly  and  not  win  a  prize." 

So  Alex  assisted  at  the  prize-giving,  and  saw  Lady  Essie 
accept  the  jingling,  Indian  silver  bangles  that  were  so  much 
in  fashion,  with  frank  pleasure  and  gratitude,  and  saw  con- 

[210] 


LAWN-TENNIS 


solation  prizes  awarded  to  Cedric  and  to  his  partner,  who 
appeared  entirely  deHghted,  although  she  had  done  nothing 
at  all  to  deserve  distinction. 

"  You  ought  to  have  a  prize,  you  know,"  she  heard  Ralph 
McAllister  tell  Barbara.  "If  you'd  had  a  better  partner 
you'd  have  won  easily.  You  play  much  better  than  Lady 
Essie,  really ! " 

It  was  not  in  the  least  true  that  Barbara  played  better 
than  Lady  Essie,  or  nearly  so  well,  but  she  put  on  a  little, 
gratified,  complacent  smile,  that  apparently  satisfied  Ralph 
McAllister  quite  as  well  as  modest  disclaimers. 

Alex  kept  out  of  her  partner's  way,  and  avoided  his  eye. 
Not  much  probability  that  he  would  address  flattering 
speeches  to  her ! 

All  the  time  a  subconscious  emotion  was  surging  through 
her  at  the  thought  of  Mother  Gertrude's  letter  and  what  it 
contained. 

"The  life  you  are  leading  does  not  satisfy  you.  You 
will  never  find  that  what  the  world  can  offer  will  satisfy 
you." 

It  was  true  enough.  Heaven  knew,  Alex  thought  drearily, 
as  she  addressed  perfunctory  and  obviously  absent-minded 
civilities  to  her  mother's  guests. 

In  the  sense  of  depression  engendered  by  the  afternoon's 
failure,  no  less  than  by  the  sight  of  McAllister's  evident  de- 
light in  Barbara's  demure,  patently-artificial,  alternate  coy- 
ness and  gaiety,  Alex  realized  both  her  own  eternal  dis- 
satisfaction with  her  surroundings  and  the  subtle  allure- 
ment of  a  renunciation  that  should  yet  promise  her  all  that 
she  most  longed  for. 


[211] 


XVIII 

Crisis 

WHEN  Alex  went  batk  to  London  in  the  beginning 
of  October,  it  was  with  a  sensation  as  though  an 
enormous  gulf  of  time  had  been  traversed  between 
her  visits  to  the  convent  in  the  hot,  arid  summer  days  and 
her  return  there.  For  one  thing  the  cold  weather  had  set 
in  early  and  with  unusual  severity,  and  the  sight  of  fires  and 
winter  furs  seemed  to  succeed  with  startling  rapidity  to 
the  roses  and  lawn-tennis  at  Windsor. 

In  her  first  greeting  with  Mother  Gertrude,  too,  Alex  was 
strongly  conscious  of  that  indefinable  sensation  of  having 
made  some  strange,  almost  unguessed-at  progress  in  a  di- 
rection of  which  she  was  only  now  becoming  aware.  It 
frightened  her  when  the  Superior,  gazing  at  her  with  those 
light,  steady  eyes  that  now  held  a  depth  of  undi-sguised  ten- 
derness, spoke  firmly,  with  an  implication  that  could  no 
longer  be  denied  or  ignored. 

"  So  the  great  decision  is  taken,  little  Alex.  And  if  peace 
has  not  yet  come  to  you,  do  not  feel  dismayed.  It  will 
come,  as  surely  as  I  stand  here  and  tell  you  of  it.  But  there 
may  be  —  there  must  be  —  conflict  first." 

Whether  she  spoke  of  the  conflict  which  Alex  foresaw, 
half  with  dread  and  half  with  exultation,  as  inevitable  be- 
tween herself  and  her  surroundings,  or  of  some  deeper, 
inward  dissension  in  Alex'  own  soul,  she  could  not  tell. 

But  there  was  both  joy  and  a  certain  excitement  in  hav- 
ing her  destiny  so  much  taken  for  granted,  and  the  mystical 
and  devotional  works  to  which  the  Superior  gave  her  free 
access  worked  upon  her  imagination,  and  dispelled  many  of 
her  lingering  doubts.  Those  which  lay  deepest  in  her  soul, 
she  never  examined.     She  was  alm'ost,  though  not  quite, 

[212] 


CRISIS 


unaware  of  their  existence,  and  to  probe  deeper  into  that 
faint,  underlying  questioning  would  have  seemed  a  disloy- 
alty equally  to  that  intangible  possession  which  she  had  be- 
gun to  think  of  as  her  vocation,  and  to  Mother  Gertrude. 
The  sense  of  closer  companionship  —  of  a  more  intimate 
spiritual  union  expressed,  though  never  explicitly  so  in 
words,  in  her  relation  with  the  Superior,  was  unutterably 
precious  to  Alex.  In  the  joy  that  it  brought  her  she  read 
merely  another  manifestation  and  the  consolation  to  be 
found  in  the  way  of  the  Spirit. 

A  feeling  of  impending  crisis,  however,  hung  over  the 
hurrying  days  of  that  brief  November,  when  the  convent 
parlour  in  the  afternoons  was  illuminated  by  a  single  gas- 
jet  that  cast  strange,  clean-cut  shadows  on  the  white- 
washed walls. 

Just  before  Christmas  Sir  Francis  spoke: 

"  What  is  this  violent  attraction  that  takes  you  out  with 
your  maid  in  the  opposite  direction  to  your  mother's  ex- 
peditions with  Barbara?  "  he  suddenly  inquired  of  Alex  one 
evening,  very  stiffly. 

She  started  and  coloured,  having  retained  all  the  childish, 
uneasy  belief  that  her  father  lived  in  an  atmosphere  far 
above  that  into  which  the  sound  and  sight  of  his  children's 
daily  doings  could  penetrate  to  his  knowledge  without  the 
special  intervention  of  some  accredited  emissary  such  as 
their  mother. 

As  he  spoke  Lady  Isabel  looked  up,  and  Barbara  left  the 
piano  and  came  slowly  down  the  room. 

''It  has  come"  flashed  through  Alex'  mind.  She  only 
said  very  lamely : 

"I  —  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,  father."  There  was 
all  the  shifting  uneasiness  in  her  manner  that  Sir  Francis 
most  disliked. 

"Oh,  darling,  don't  prevaricate,"  hastily  broke  in  Lady 
Isabel,  with  an  obvious  uneasiness  that  gave  the  impression 
of  being  rooted  in  something  deeper  and  of  longer  standing 
than  the  atmosphere  of  disturbance  momentarily  created. 

[213] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  But  you  did  not  want  me  to  come  with  you  and  Bar- 
bara to  the  Stores  this  afternoon,"  said  Alex  cravenly.  The 
instinct  of  evading  the  direct  issue  was  so  strongly  implanted 
in  her,  that  she  was  prepared  to  have  recourse  to  the  feeblest 
and  least  convincing  of  subterfuges  in  order  to  gain  time. 

"  Of  course,  I  don't  want  you  to  come  anywhere  when  it 
all  so  obviously  bores  you,"  plaintively  said  Lady  Isabel. 
"  I  have  almost  given  up  trying  to  take  you  anywhere,  Alex, 
as  you  very  well  know.  You  evidently  prefer  to  go  and  sit 
in  a  little  stuffy  back-room  somewhere  with  Heaven  knows 
whom,  sooner  than  remain  in  the  company  of  your  mother 
and  sister." 

Alex  felt  too  much  dismayed  and  unwillingly  convicted 
to  make  any  reply,  but  after  a  momentary  silence  Sir  Francis 
spoke  ominously. 

"Indeed!  is  that  so?" 

The  suspicion  that  had  laid  dormant  in  Alex  for  a  long 
time  woke  to  life.  Her  father's  disappointment  in  her, 
none  the  less  keenly  felt  because  inarticulate,  had  become 
merged  into  a  far  greater  bitterness :  that  of  his  resentment 
on  behalf  of  his  wife.  A  personal  grievance  he  might  over- 
look, though  once  perceived  he  would  never  forget  it,  but 
where  Lady  Isabel's  due  was  concerned,  her  husband  was 
capable  of  implacability. 

"And  may  one  inquire  whose  is  the  society  which  you 
find  so  preferable  to  that  of  your  family  ?  "  he  asked  her, 
with  the  manifest  sarcasm  that  in  him  denoted  the  extreme 
of  anger. 

Alex  was  constitutionally  so  much  terrified  of  disapproval 
that  it  produced  in  her  a  veritable  physical  inability  to  ex- 
plain herself.  She  cast  an  agonized  look  around  her.  Her 
mother  was  leaning  back,  her  face  strained  and  tired,  and 
would  not  meet  her  eye.  Sir  Francis,  she  knew  without 
daring  to  look  at  him,  was  swinging  his  eye-glasses  to  and 
fro,  with  a  measured  regularity  that  indicated  his  determi- 
nation to  wait  inexorably  and  for  any  length  of  time  for 
a  reply  to  his  inquiry.     Barbara's  big,  alert  eyes  moved 

[214] 


CRISIS 


from  one  member  of  the  group  to  another,  acute  and  full 
of  appraisement  of  them  all. 

Alex  flung  a  wordless  appeal  to  her  sister.  Barbara  did 
not  fail  to  receive  and  understand  it,  and  after  a  moment 
she  spoke: 

*  "  Alex  goes  to  see  the  Superior  of  that  convent  near 
Bryanston  Square.  She  made  friends  with  her  in  the  sum- 
mer, didn't  you,  Alex  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  faltered  Alex.  Some  instinct  of  trying  to  palliate 
what  she  felt  would  be  looked  upon  as  undesirable  made  her 
add  in  feeble  extenuation,  "  It  is  a  house  of  the  same  Order 
as  the  Liege  one  where  I  was  at  school,  you  know." 

"  Your  devotion  to  it  was  not  so  marked  in  those  days, 
if  I  remember  right,"  said  her  father  in  the  same,  rather 
elaborately  sarcastic  strain. 

Lady  Isabel,  no  less  uneasy  under  it  than  was  Alex  her- 
self, broke  in  with  nervous  exasperation  in  her  every  in- 
tonation : 

*'  Oh,  Francis,  it  is  the  same  old  story  —  one  of  those 
foolish  infatuations.  You  know  what  she  has  always  been 
like,  and  how  worried  I  was  about  that  dreadful  Torrance 
girl.     It's  this  nun  now,  I  suppose." 

"  Who  is  this  woman  ?  " 

"  How  should  I  know  ? "  helplessly  said  Lady  Isabel. 
"Alex?" 

"  The  Superior  —  the  Head  of  the  house."  Alex  stopped. 
How  could  one  say,  "  Mother  Gertrude  of  the  Holy  Cross  ?  " 
She  did  not  even  know  what  the  Superior's  name  in  the 
world  had  been,  or  where  she  came  from. 

"  Go  on,"  said  Sir  Francis  inexorably. 

They  were  all  looking  at  her,  and  sheer  desperation  came 
to  her  help. 

"Why  shouldn't  I  have  friends?  .  .  .  What  is  all  this 
about?"  Alex  asked  wildly.  "It's  my  own  life.  I  don't 
want  to  be  undutiful,  but  why  can't  I  live  my  own  life? 
Everything  I  ever  do  is  wrong,  and  I  know  you  and  father 
are  disappointed  in  me,  but  I  don't  know  how  to  be  differ- 

[215] 


CONSEQUENCES 


ent  —  I  wish  I  did."  She  was  crying  bitterly  now.  "  You 
wanted  me  to  marry  Noel,  and  I  would  have  if  I  could,  but 
I  knew  that  it  would  all  have  been  wrong,  and  we  should 
have  made  each  other  miserable.  Only  when  I  did  break  it 
off,  it  all  seemed  wrong  and  heartless,  and  I  don't  know 
what  to  do — "  She  felt  herself  becoming  incoherent,  and 
the  tension  of  the  atmosphere  grew  almost  unbearable. 

Sir  Francis  Clare  spoke,  true  to  the  traditions  of  his  day, 
viewing  with  something  very  much  like  horror  the  break- 
ing down  of  those  defences  of  a  conventional  reserve  that 
should  lay  bare  the  undisciplined  emotions  of  the  soul. 

"  You  have  said  enough,  Alex.  There  are  certain  things 
that  we  do  not  put  into  words  .  .  .  You  are  unhappy,  my 
child,  you  have  said  so  yourself,  and  it  has  been  sufficiently 
obvious  for  some  time." 

"  But  what  is  it  that  you  want,  Alex  ?  What  would  make 
you  happy  ?  "  her  mother  broke  in,  piteously  enough. 

In  the  face  of  their  perplexity,  Alex  lost  the  last  feeble  clue 
to  her  own  complexity.     She  did  not  know  what  she  wanted 

—  to  make  them  happy,  to  be  happy  herself,  to  be  adored 
and  admired  and  radiantly  successful,  never  to  know  loneli- 
ness, or  misunderstanding  again  —  such  thoughts  surged 
chaotically  through  her  mind  as  she  stood  there  sobbing,  and 
could  find  no  words  except  the  childish  foolish  formula, 
"  I  don't  know." 

She  saw  Barbara's  eager,  protesting  gaze  flash  upon  her, 
and  heard  her  half-stifled  exclamation  of  wondering  con- 
tempt. Sir  Francis  turned  to  his  younger  daughter,  almost 
as  though  seeking  elucidation  from  her  obvious  certainties 

—  her  crude  assurance  with  life. 

"  Oh !  "  said  little  Barbara,  her  hands  clenched,  "  they  ask 
you  what  you  want,  what  would  make  you  happy  —  they  are 
practically  offering  you  anything  you  want  in  the  world  — 
you  could  choose  anything,  and  you  stand  there  and  cry 
and  say  you  don't  know!     Oh,  Alex  —  you  —  you  idiot!'* 

"  Hush !  "  said  Sir  Francis,  shocked,  and  Lady  Isabel  put 
out  her  white  hand  with  its  glittering  weight  of  rings  and 

[216] 


CRISIS 


laid  it  gently  on  Barbara's  shoulder,  and  she  too  said, 
"  Hush,  darling !  why  are  you  so  vehement  ?  You  Ye 
happy,  are'nt  you,  Barbara  ?  " 

"  Of  course,"  said  Barbara,  wriggling.  "  Only  if  you  and 
father  asked  me  what  /  would  like,  and  I  had  only  to  say 
what  I  wanted,  I  could  think  of  such  millions  of  things  — 
for  us  to  have  a  house  in  the  country,  and  to  give  a  real, 
proper  big  ball  next  year,  and  for  you  to  let  me  go  to 
restaurant  dinners  sometimes,  and  not  only  those  dull  par- 
ties and  —  heaps  of  things  like  that.  It's  such  an  oppor- 
tunity, and  Alex  is  wasting  it  all !  The  only  thing  she  wants 
is  to  sit  and  talk  and  talk  and  talk  with  some  dull  old  nun 
at  that  convent !  " 

Long  afterwards  Alex  was  to  remember  and  ponder  over 
again  and  again  that  denunciation  of  Barbara's.  It  was  all 
fact  —  was  it  all  true  ?  Was  that  what  she  was  fighting  for 
—  that  the  goal  of  her  vehement,  inchoate  rebellion?  Had 
she  sought  in  Mother  Gertrude's  society  the  relief  of  self- 
expression  only,  or  was  her  infatuation  for  the  nun  the 
channel  through  which  she  hoped  to  find  those  abstract 
possessions  of  the  spirit  which  might  constitute  the  happi- 
ness she  craved  ? 

Nothing  of  all  the  questionings  that  were  to  come  later 
invaded  her  mind,  as  she  stood  sobbing  and  self -convicted 
at  the  crises  of  her  relations  with  her  childhood's  home. 

"  Don't  cry  so,  Alex  darlin'."  Lady  Isabel  sank  back  into 
her  armchair.  "  Don't  cry  like  that  —  it's  so  bad  for  you 
and  I  can't  bear  it.  We  only  want  to  know  how  we  can 
make  you  happier  than  you  are.  It's  so  dreadful,  Alex  — 
you've  got  everything,  I  should  have  thought  —  a  home,  and 
parents  who  love  you  —  it  isn't  every  girl  that  has  a  father 
like  yours,  some  of  them  care  nothing  for  their  daughters  — 
and  you're  young  and  pretty  and  with  good  health  —  you 
might  have  such  a  perfect  time,  even  if  you  have  made  a 
mistake,  poor  little  thing,  there'll  be  other  people,  Alex  — 
you'll  know  better  another  time  .  .  .  only  I  can't  bear  it  if 
you  lose  all  your  looks  by  frettin'  and  refusin'  to  go  any- 

[217] 


CONSEQUENCES 


where,  and  every  one  asks  me  where  my  eldest  daughter  is 
and  why  she  doesn't  make  more  friends,  and  enjoy  things  — " 
Lady  Isabel's  voice  trailed  away.  She  looked  unutterably 
tired.  They  had  none  of  them  heard  so  emotional  a  ring 
in  her  voice  ever  before. 

Sir  Francis  looked  down  at  his  wife  in  silence,  and  his 
gaze  was  as  tender  as  his  voice  was  stern  when  he  finally 
spoke. 

"  This  cannot  go  on.  You  have  done  everything  to  please 
Alex  —  to  try  and  make  her  happy,  and  it  has  all  been  of  no 
use.     Let  her  take  her  own  way !     We  have  failed." 

"  No !  "  almost  shrieked  Alex. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  We  have  your  own  word  for  it 
and  your  sister's  that  you  are  not  happy  at  home,  and  in- 
finitely prefer  the  society  of  some  woman  of  whom  we 
know  nothing,  in  surroundings  which  I  should  have  thought 
would  have  proved  highly  uncongenial  to  one  of  my  daugh- 
ters, brought  up  among  well-bred  people.  But  apparently 
I  am  mistaken. 

"  It  is  the  modern  way,  I  am  told.  A  young  girl  uses  her 
father's  house  to  shelter  and  feed  her,  and  seeks  her  own 
friends  and  her  own  interests  the  while,  with  no  reference 
to  her  parents'  wishes. 

"  But  not  in  this  case,  Alex.  I  have  your  mother  and 
your  sisters  to  consider.  Your  folly  is  embittering  the  home 
life  that  might  be  so  happy  and  pleasant  for  all  of  us.  Look 
at  your  mother!  " 

Lady  Isabel  was  in  tears. 

"What  shall  I  do?"  said  Alex  wildly.  "Let  me  go 
right  away  and  not  spoil  things  any  more." 

"  You  have  said  it,"  replied  Sir  Francis  gravely,  and  in- 
clined his  head. 

"  Francis,  what  are  you  tellin'  her  ?  How  can  she  go 
away  from  us?    It's  her  home,  until  she  marries." 

Lady  Isabel's  voice  was  full  of  distressed  perplexity. 

"  My  dear  love,  don't  —  don't  agitate  yourself.     This  is 

[218] 


CRISIS 


her  home,  as  you  say,  and  is  always  open  to  her.  But 
until  she  has  learnt  to  be  happy  there,  let  her  seek  these  new 
friends,  whom  she  so  infinitely  prefers.  Let  her  go  to  this 
nun." 

Alex,  at  his  words,  felt  a  rush  of  longing  for  the  tender- 
ness, the  grave  understanding  of  Mother  Gertrude,  the  at- 
mosphere of  the  quiet  convent  parlour  where  she  had  never 
heard  reproach  or  accusation. 

'*  Oh,  yes,  let  me  go  there,"  she  sobbed  childishly.  "  1*11 
try  and  be  good  there.     I'll  come  back  good,  indeed  I  will." 

Barbara's  little,  cool  voice  cut  across  her  sobs : 

"  How  can  you  go  there  ?  Will  they  let  you  stay  ?  What 
will  every  one  think  ?  " 

**  So  many  girls  take  up  slumming  and  good  works  now-a- 
days,"  said  Lady  Isabel  wearily.  "  Every  one  knows  she's 
been  upset  and  unhappy  for  a  long  while.  It  may  be  the 
best  plan.  My  poor  darling,  when  you're  tired  of  it,  you 
can  come  back,  and  we'll  try  again." 

There  was  no  reproach  at  all  in  her  voice  now,  only  ex- 
haustion, and  a  sort  of  relief  at  having  reached  a  conclu- 
sion. 

*'  You  hear  what  your  mother  says.  If  her  angelic  love 
and  patience  do  not  touch  you,  Alex,  you  must  indeed  be 
heartless.  Make  your  arrangements,  and  remember,  my 
poor  child,  that  as  long  as  her  arms  remain  open  to  you,  I 
will  receive  you  home  again  with  love  and  patience  and  with- 
out one  word  of  reproach." 

He  opened  the  door  for  Lady  Isabel  and  followed  slowly 
from  the  room,  his  iron-grey  head  shaking  a  little. 

Alex  flung  herself  down,  and  Barbara  laid  her  hand  half 
timidly  on  her  sister's,  in  one  of  her  rare  caresses. 

"  Don't  cry,  Alex.  Are  you  really  going  ?  It's  much  the 
best  idea,  of  course,  and  by  the  time  you  come  back  they 
may  have  something  else  to  think  about." 

She  giggled  a  little,  self-consciously,  and  waited,  as  though 
to  be  questioned. 

[219] 


CONSEQUENCES 


*'  I  might  be  engaged  to  be  married,  or  something  like 
that,  and  then  you'd  come  back  to  be  my  bridesmaid,  and 
no  one  would  think  of  anything  unhappy." 

Alex  made  no  answer.  Her  tears  had  exhausted  her  and 
she  felt  weak  and  tired. 

"  How  are  you  going  to  settle  it  all  ?  "  pursued  Barbara 
tirelessly.     **  Hadn't  you  better  write  to  them  and  see  if 
they'll  have  you?    Supposing  Mother  Gertrude  said  you 
couldn't  go  there  ?  " 
A  pang  of  terror  shot  through  Alex  at  the  thought. 
"  Oh,  no,  no !     She  won't  say  she  couldn't  have  me." 
She  went  blindly  to  the  carved  writing-table  with  its  heavy 
gilt  and  cut-glass  appointments,  and  drew  a  sheet  of  paper 
towards  her. 

Barbara  stood  watching  her  curiously.     Feeling  as  though 
the  power  of  consecutive  thought  had  almost  left  her,  Alex 
scrawled  a  few  words  and  addressed  them  to  the  Superior. 
"We  can  send  it  round  by  hand,"  said  Barbara  coolly. 
"  Then  you'll  know  tonight." 
Alex  looked  utterly  bewildered. 
"  It's  quite  early  —  Holland  can  go  in  a  cab." 
Barbara  rang  the  bell  importantly  and  gave  her  instruc- 
tions in  a  small,  hard  voice. 

**  It's  no  use  just  waiting  about  for  days  and  days,"  she 
said  to  Alex.  *'  It  makes  the  whole  house  feel  horrid,  and 
father  is  so  grave  and  sarcastic  at  meals,  and  it  makes 
mother  ill.  You'd  much  rather  be  there  than  here,  wouldn't 
you,  Alex?" 

Alex  thought  again  of  the  Superior's  welcome,  which  had 
never  failed  her  —  the  Superior  who  knew  nothing  of  her 
wicked  ingratitude  and  undutifulness  at  home,  and  repeated 
miserably : 

"  Yes,  yes,  Fd  much  rather  be  there  than  here." 
The  answer  to  the  note  came  much  more  quickly  than 
they  had  expected  it.     Barbara  heard  the  cab  stop  in  the 
square  outside,  and  ran  down  into  the  hall.     She  came  back 
in  a  moment  with  a  small,  twisted  note. 

[220] 


CRISIS 


"  What  does  it  say,  Alex?" 

Alex  read  the  tiny  missive,  -and  a  great  throb  of  purest 
relief  and  comfort  went  through  her. 

*'  I  may  go  at  once.  She  is  waiting  for  me  now,  this 
minute,  if  I  like." 

"  What  did  I  tell  you  ?  "  cried  Barbara  triumphantly. 

She  looked  sharply  at  her  sister,  who  was  unconsciously 
clasping  the  little  note  as  though  she  derived  positive  con- 
solation from  the  contact.     She  went  to  the  door. 

**  Holland!  is  the  cab  still  there?" 

"  Yes,  Miss  Barbara." 

"  Why  don't  you  go  back  in  it  now,  Alex  ?  " 

"Tonight?" 

"  Why  not  ?  She  says  she's  waiting  for  you,  and  it  would 
all  be  much  easier  than  a  lot  of  good-byes  and  things,  with 
father  and  mother." 

"  I  couldn't  go  without  telling  them." 

"  I'll  tell  them." 

Alex  felt  no  strength,  only  a  longing  for  quiet  and  for 
Mother  Gertrude. 

"  Ask  if  I  may,"  she  said  faintly, 

Barbara  darted  out  of  the  room. 

When  she  came  back,  Alex  heard  her  giving  orders  to 
Holland  to  pack  a  dressing-bag  with  things  for  the  night. 

Then  she  hurried  into  the  room  again. 

"  They  said  yes,"  she  announced.  "  I  think  they  agree 
with  me  that  it's  much  the  best  thing  to  do  it  at  once.  After 
all,  you're  only  going  for  a  little  visit.  Mother  said  I  was 
to  give  you  her  love.     She's  lying  down." 

"Shall  I  go  in  to  her?" 

"  You'd  better  not.  Father's  there  too.  I've  told  Holland 
to  pack  your  bag.     We  can  send  the  other  things  tomorrow." 

"  But  I  shan't  want  much.     It's  only  for  a  little  while." 

"Yes,  that's  all,  isn't  it?"  said  Barbara  quickly.  "It's 
only  for  a  little  while.     Shall  I  fetch  your  things,  Alex  ?  " 

Alex  was  relieved  to  be  spared  the  ascent  to  the  top 
of  the  house,  for  which  her  limbs  felt  far  too  weary.     She 

[221] 


CONSEQUENCES 


sat  and  looked  round  her  at  the  big,  double  drawing-room, 
crowded  with  heavy  Victorian  furniture,  and  upholstered 
in  yellow,  brocaded  satin.  She  had  always  thought  it  a 
beautiful  room,  and  the  recollection  of  its  splendour  and  of 
the  big,  gilt-framed  pictures  and  mirrors  that  hung  round 
its  wall,  was  mingled  with  the  earliest  memories  of  her 
nursery  days. 

"  Here  you  are,"  said  Barbara.  "  Fve  brought  your  fur 
boa  too,  because  it's  sure  to  be  cold.  Holland  has  got  your 
bag." 

Without  a  word  Alex  rose,  and  they  went  down  the  broad 
staircase. 

"  I  hope  it'll  be  nice,"  said  Barbara  cheerfully. 

"  It's  very  brave  of  you  to  go,  I  think,  Alex,  and  you'll 
write  and  tell  me  all  about  it,  and  how  you  like  poor  people, 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing." 

Alex  realized  that  her  sister  was  talking  for  the  benefit 
of  the  servants. 

There  was  a  rush  of  icy,  sleet-laden  wind,  as  the  front 
door  was  opened. 

"  Gracious,  what  a  night !  " 

Barbara  retreated  to  the  stairs  again. 

"  Good-bye,  Alex.  Let  me  know  what  things  you  want 
sent  on." 

*'  Good-bye,"  said  Alex,  apathetic  from  fatigue. 

She  turned  and  waved  her  hand  once  to  Barbara,  a  slim, 
alert  little  figure  clin'ging  to  the  great,  carved  foot  of  the 
balustrade,  the  lamp-light  casting  a  radiance  over  her  light, 
puflFed-out  hair,  and  gleaming  fitfully  over  the  shining  steel 
buckles  on  her  pointed  shoes. 

Alex  hurried  through  the  cold  evening  to  the  shelter  of 
the  cab. 

It  jolted  slowly  through  the  lighted  streets,  and  she  leant 
back,  her  eyes  closed. 

A  wave  of  sick  apprehension  surged  over  her  every  now 
and  then,  and  she  shivered  spasmodically  under  her  fur. 

"  Here  we  are.  Miss.     Shall  I  get  out  and  ring,  so  that 

[222] 


CRISIS 


you  won't  have  to  wait  in  this  cold  ?  "  said  the  maid  com- 
passionately. 

From  the  dark  comer  of  the  cab  Alex  watched  the  trim, 
black-clad  figure  mount  the  steps. 

There  was  always  a  long  wait  before  the  convent  door 
was  opened. 

But  tonight  it  was  flung  back  and  warm  light  streamed 
out. 

Alex,  cold  and  frightened,  stumbled  up  the  steps  in  her 
turn. 

It  was  not  the  old  portress  who  had  thrown  back  the 
open  door. 

The  Superior  was  waiting,  her  hands  outstretched. 

"  My  child,  my  child,  come  in !    Welcome  home." 


[223] 


J>%.', 


Book  II 


XIX 

Belgium 

**^  ISTER  ALEXANDRA,  I  have  put  a  letter  in  your 

^^    cell.    And  will  you  go  to  Mother  Gertrude's  room 

^^-^      after  Vespers  ?  " 

"  Thank  you,  Sister.  I  wonder  if  Mother  Gertrude  re- 
members that  I  have  to  go  down  to  the  children  at  five 
o'clock,  though  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  dare  say  not.  Perhaps  you  could  get  some  one 
to  replace  you  there.  Shall  I  see  if  Sister  Agnes  is 
free?" 

"  Thank  you,  I  will  speak  to  Mother  Gertrude  first." 

The  nuns  separated,  the  lay-sister  returning  to  her  eternal 
task  of  polishing  up  the  brasses  and  gilt  candlesticks  of  the 
chapel  perpetually  dimmed  by  the  rain  and  mists  of  the 
Belgian  climate,  and  Alexandra  Clare,  professed  religious, 
wearily  mounted  the  steep,  narrow  stairs  to  the  tiny  cubicle 
in  the  large  dormitory,  designated  a  "cell."  There  would 
just  be  time  to  fetch  the  letter  and  put  it  into  the  deep 
pocket  of  her  habit  before  the  bell  rang  for  Vespers,  other- 
wise they  would  have  to  wait  till  next  morning,  for  she 
knew  there  would  be  no  spare  instant  for  even  a  momen- 
tary return  to  the  cell  until  she  went  to  bed  that  night, 
far  too  tired  for  anything  but  such  rest  as  her  pallet-bed 
could  afford.  She  felt  little  or  no  curiosity  as  to  her  cor- 
respondence. 

Nobody  wrote  to  her  except  Barbara,  who  had  kept  her 
posted  in  all  the  general  family  news  with  fair  regularity 
for  the  past  nine  years. 

She  recognized  without  elation  the  narrow  envelope  with 
the  thin  black  edge  affected  by  Barbara  ever  since  she  had 
become  the  widow  of  Ralph  McAllister,  during  the  course 
of  the  war  in  South  Africa.     It  all  seemed  to  her  very  re- 

[2271 


CONSEQUENCES 


mote.  The  fact  that  Mother  Gertrude  had  sent  for  her 
after  Vespers  was  of  far  more  importance  than  any  news 
that  Barbara  might  have  to  give  of  the  outside  world  that 
seemed  so  far  away  and  unreal. 

Sister  Alexandra  had  not  been  very  greatly  moved  by 
any  echoes  from  without,  since  the  sudden  shock  of  hear- 
ing of  her  mother's .  death,  while  she  herself  was  still  a 
novice  preparing  to  take  final  vows. 

Alex  still  remembered  the  bewilderment  of  seeing  a  black- 
clad,  sobbing,  schoolgirl  Pamela  in  the  parlour,  and  the 
frozen  rigidity  of  grief  which  had  masked  her  father's 
anguish. 

Barbara  and  Ralph  McAllister  had  been  recalled  from 
their  honeymoon  —  he  still  rapturous  at  a  marriage  which 
had  been  deferred  for  nearly  two  years  owing  to  Sir  Fran- 
cis* objection  to  his  profession,  and  Barbara  drowned  in 
decorous  tears,  through  which  shone  all  the  self-conscious 
glory  of  her  wedding-ring,  and  her  new  position  as  a  mar- 
ried woman.  Alex  had  been  thankful  when  those  trying 
interviews  had  come  to  an  end  —  she  had  been  sent  to  Liege 
just  before  her  religious  profession.  It  had  mitigated  the 
wrench  of  a  separation  from  her  Superior,  although  the 
first  months  spent  away  from  Mother  Gertrude  had  seemed 
to  her  unutterably  long  and  dreary.  But  less  than  a  year 
later  Mother  Gertrude  had  come  to  the  Mother-house  as 
Assistant  Superior,  and  the  intercourse  between  them  had 
been  as  unbroken  as  the  rule  permitted. 

It  was  eight  years  since  Alex  had  left  England,  but,  ex- 
cept for  the  extreme  cold  of  the  winter,  which  told  upon  her 
health  yearly,  she  had  grown  to  be  quite  unaware  of  the  sur- 
roundings outside.  The  wave  of  rather  febrile  patriotism 
that  rolled  over  England  at  the  time  of  the  Boer  War,  left  her 
quite  untouched,  and  no  description  of  Barbara's  conveyed 
anything  to  her  mind  of  the  astoundingly  wholesale  demoli- 
tion of  old  ideals  that  fell  with  the  death  of  Victoria,  and 
the  succession  of  Edward  VII  to  the  English  throne. 

For  Alex  there  was  no  change,  except  the  unseen  progress 

[228] 


BELGIUM 


of  time  itself.  She  only  realized  how  far  apart  she  had 
grown  from  the  old  Hfe  when  the  news  of  her  father's 
death  reached  her  in  the  winter  of  1902,  and  woke  in  her 
only  a  plaintive  pity  and  self-reproachful  wonder  at  her 
own  absence  of  any  acute  emotion. 

No  one  came  to  see  her  in  the  parlour  after  Sir  Francis' 
death.  For  one  thing,  she  was  in  Belgium  and  too  far 
away  to  be  easily  visited,  and  the  South  African  casualties, 
amongst  whom  had  numbered  Barbara's  young  husband, 
had  familiarized  them  all  with  the  ideas  of  death  and  part- 
ing, so  that  there  was  little  of  the  consternation  and  shock 
that  Lady  Isabel's  death  had  brought  to  her  children.  The 
house  in  Clevedon  Square  knew  no  more  big  receptions 
and  elaborate  At  Home  days,  but  Cedric,  already  of  age, 
had  taken  over  the  headship  of  the  household,  and  Alex 
had  been  conscious  of  a  vague  relief  that  she  could  still 
picture  the  surroundings  she  remembered  as  home  for  the 
boys  and  Pamela.  Even  that  picture  had  become  dim  and 
strangely  elusive,  three  years  later,  at  the  thought  of  Cedric's 
marriage. 

Alex  had  accepted  it,  however,  as  she  accepted  most  things 
now,  with  a  passivity  that  carried  no  conviction  to  her  mind. 
What  her  outer  knowledge  told  her  was  true,  failed  to 
impress  itself  in  any  way  upon  her  imagination,  and  conse- 
quently left  her  feelings  quite  untouched.  To  her  inner 
vision,  the  life  outside  remained  exactly  as  she  had  last 
seen  it,  in  that  summer  that  she  still  thought  of  as  *'  Diamond 
Jubilee  year." 

Inside  the  convent,  things  had  not  changed.  Looking 
back,  she  could  remember  a  faint  feeling  of  amusement  when 
she  had  returned  to  the  house  at  Liege  at  twenty-two  years 
old,  believing  herself  to  be  immeasurably  advanced  in  years 
and  experience  since  her  school-days,  and  had  found  that 
scarcely  any  alteration  or  modification  in  the  rule-bound  con- 
vent had  taken  place.  She  now  sat  among  the  other  nuns 
at  the  monthly  reclame  and  watched  the  girls  rise  one  by 
one  in  their  places,  their  hands  concealed  under  the  ugly 

[229] 


CONSEQUENCES 


black-stuff  pelerine,  their  hair  tightly  and  unbecomingly 
strained  back,  their  young  faces  demurely  made  heavy  and 
impassive,  as  they  listened  to  the  record  read  aloud  just  as 
unrelentingly  as  ever  by  old  Mere  Alphonsine. 

Sister  Alexandra  very  rarely  contributed  any  words  of 
praise  or  blame  to  the  judgment.  At  first  she  had  been 
young,  and  therefore  not  expected  to  raise  her  voice  amongst 
the  many  dignitaries  present,  but  even  now,  when  by  con- 
vent standards  she  had  attained  to  the  maturity  of  middle 
age,  her  opinion  would  have  been  of  little  value. 

She  was  seldom  sent  among  the  children,  although  she 
gave  an  English  lesson  to  the  moyennes  on  two  evenings  a 
week.  In  her  first  year  at  Liege,  there  had  been  an  Ameri- 
can girl  of  fourteen  who  had  taken  a  sudden  rapturous  liking 
to  her,  which  had  never  proceeded  beyond  the  initial  stages, 
since  Alex,  without  explanation,  had  merely  been  told  to 
hand  over  the  charge  of  the  child's  English  and  French 
lessons  hitherto  in  her  hands,  and  had  herself  been  trans- 
ferred to  other  duties.  Since  then,  she  had  been  kept  on 
the  Community  side  of  the  house,  and  employed  principally 
by  Mother  Gertrude  to  assist  with  the  enormous  task  of 
correspondence  that  fell  to  the  share  of  the  Assistant  Supe- 
rior. She  was  taught  to  sew,  and  a  large  amount  of  mend- 
ing passed  through  her  hands  and  was  badly  accomplished, 
for  Lady  Isabel  Clare's  daughter  had  learned  little  that  could 
be  of  use  to  her  in  the  life  she  had  selected.  She  was  not 
even  sufficiently  musical  to  give  lessons  in  piano  or  organ 
playing,  nor  had  she  any  of  the  artistic  talent  that  might  be 
utilized  for  the  perpetration  of  the  various  pious  objects 
d'a/rt  that  adorned  the  walls  of  the  parlours  or  the  class- 
room. 

Nevertheless,  Sister  Alexandra  was  hard-worked.  No 
one  was  ever  anything  else  at  the  convent,  where  the  chant- 
ing of  the  daily  Office  alone  was  a  very  considerable  physical 
strain,  both  in  the  raw  cold  of  the  early  morning  and  at  the 
dose  of  the  ceaselessly  occupied  day.  Many  of  the  nuns 
said  the  Office  apart,  owing  to  the  numerous  duties  that 

[230] 


BELGIUM 


called  them  from  the  chapel  during  the  hours  of  praise  and 
supplication,  but  Sister  Alexandra  had  so  few  outside  calls 
upon  her  time  that  she  was  one  of  the  most  regular  in 
attendance. 

At  first  her  health  had  appeared  to  improve  under  the 
extreme  regularity  of  the  life,  and  later,  when  her  final  vows 
had  been  made,  it  was  no  longer  a  subject  for  speculation. 
She  was  not  ill,  and  therefore  need  never  reproach  herself 
with  being  a  burden  to  her  Community.  Anything  else  did 
not  matter  —  one  was  tired,  no  doubt  —  but  one  had  made 
the  sacrifice  of  one's  life.  .  .  .  Thus  the  conventual  creed. 
.  Time  had  sped  by,  with  strange,  monotonous,  unperceived 
rapidity.  It  was  all  a  matter  of  waiting  for  the  next  thing. 
At  first,  Alex  Clare  had  waited  eagerly  and  nervously  to  be 
taught  some  mysterious  secret  that  would  enable  her  to  be- 
come miraculously  happy  and  good  at  home  in  Clevedon 
Square.  Then  she  had  gradually  come  to  see  that  there 
would  be  no  return  —  that  her  home  thenceforward  would 
be  with  Mother  Gertrude,  and  in  the  convent.  Her  novitiate 
days  had  come  next  —  strange,  trying  apprenticeship,  that 
had  been  lightened  and  comforted  by  the  woman  whose  pow- 
erful and  magnetic  personality  had  never  failed  to  assert 
itself  and  its  strength. 

Belgium,  and  the  anguished  waiting  and  hoping  for  or- 
ders to  return  to  London,  and  the  growing  certainty  that 
those  orders  would  not  come,  had  culminated  in  the  rush  of 
relief  and  joy  that  heralded  Mother  Gertrude's  unexpected 
transfer  to  the  Mother-house.  After  that,  her  first  vows, 
taken  for  a  term  of  two  years,  had  inaugurated  the  long 
probationary  period  at  the  end  of  which  a  final  and  irre- 
vocable pledge  would  bind  her  for  ever  to  the  way  of  the 
chosen  few.  Those  perpetual  vows  were  held  out  to  her 
as  the  goal  and  crown  of  life  itself,  and  her  mind  had  specu- 
lated not  at  all  on  what  should  follow. 

She  was  twenty-six  before  she  was  allowed  to  become  a 
professed  religious  —  according  to  conventual  standards,  no 
longer  a  very  young  woman.     The  delay  had  inflamed  her 

[231] 


CONSEQUENCES 


ardour  very  much.  It  was  characteristic  of  Alex  to  believe 
implicitly  in  an  overwhelming  transformation  which  should 
take  place  within  her  by  virtue  of  one  definite  act,  so 
long  anticipated  as  to  have  acquired  the  proportions  of  a 
miracle. 

It  sometimes  seemed  to  her  that  ever  since  the  embracing 
of  those  perpetual  vows,  she  had  lived  on,  waiting  for  the 
transformation  to  operate.  There  was  nothing  else  to  wait 
for.  The  supreme  act  in  the  life  of  a  religious,  to  the  ac- 
complishment of  which  her  whole  being  had  hitherto  been 
tending,  impelled  at  once  by  precept  and  by  example,  had 
taken  place. 

The  next  initiation  could  only  be  obtained  through  death 
itself,  yet  Alex  was  still  waiting. 

She  would  tell  herself  that  she  was  waiting  for  the  chil- 
dren's summer  holidays  for  the  beginning  of  the  new  term, 
then  for  the  season  of  Advent  and  the  Christmas  festival, 
for  the  long  stretch  of  Lenten  weeks,  with  its  additional  fast- 
ings and  fatigue,  and  still  as  each  year  slipped  by  the  sense 
of  unfulfilment  remained  with  her,  dormant  but  occasionally 
stirring. 

In  the  last  four  years  she  had  become  additionally  sensible 
of  a  growing  exhaustion,  that  seemed  to  sap  her  spirit  no 
less  than  the  strength  of  her  body.  She  had  waited  for  her 
weariness  to  culminate  in  a  breakdown  of  strength  that 
should  send  her  to  the  convent  infirmary,  when  the  rest  that 
her  body  craved  would  be  imposed  upon  her  as  an  obliga- 
tion, but  no  such  relief  came  to  her. 

It  sometimes  struck  her  with  a  feeling  of  wonder  that 
such  utter  lassitude  of  flesh  and  spirit  alike  could  continue 
with  no  apparent  and  drastic  effect  upon  her  powers  of  fol- 
lowing the  daily  rule.  But  she  had  no  time  in  which  to 
think,  for  the  most  part,  and  the  example  of  Mother  Ger- 
trude's unflagging  energy  could  always  shame  her  into  un- 
complaint.  Her  devotion  to  the  elder  nun  had  inevitably 
increased  by  the  very  restrictions  that  the  convent  rules 
placed  upon  their  intercourse. 

[232] 


BELGIUM 


Even  now,  after  so  many  years  spent  beneath  the  same 
roof,  the  thought  that  she  was  summoned  to  a  private  inter- 
view with  Mother  Gertrude  could  still  make  her  heart  beat 
faster.  Since  the  days  of  her  novitiate,  there  had  been  few 
such  opportunities,  and  those  for  the  most  part  hurried  and 
interrupted. 

Sister  Alexandra  went  downstairs  with  a  lightened  heart. 

The  bell  from  the  chapel  rang  out  its  daily  summons,  and 
she  mechanically  took  off  her  black-stuff  apron,  folded  and 
put  it  away,  and  turned  her  steps  down  the  long  passage. 

Her  hands  were  folded  under  her  long  sleeves  and  her 
head  bent  beneath  her  veil,  in  the  attitude  prescribed. 

Barbara's  letter  lay  in  the  depths  of  her  pocket,  already 
forgotten. 

Her  thoughts  had  flown  ahead,  and  she  was  hoping  that 
the  Superior  would  allow  her  to  send  Sister  Agnes  in  her 
stead  to  the  children  at  five  o'clock. 

In  the  chapel,  she  raised  her  eyes  furtively  to  the  big, 
carved  stall  on  a  raised  dais  where  the  Assistant  Superior 
had  her  place  during  the  frequent  absence  of  the  Superior- 
General. 

Mother  Gertrude  was  very  often  claimed  in  the  parlour 
or  elsewhere,  even  during  the  hours  of  recital  of  the  Office, 
and  Alex  was  always  aware  of  a  faint  but  perceptible  pang 
of  jealousy  when  this  was  the  case. 

Tonight,  however,  the  stately  black-robed  figure  was  pres- 
ent. She  was  always  upright  and  immovable,  and  her  eyes 
were  always  downcast  to  her  book. 

Alex  went  through  the  Psalms,  chanted  on  the  accus- 
tomed single  high  note,  and  was  hardly  conscious  of  a  word 
she  uttered.  Long  repetition  had  very  soon  dulled  her  ap- 
preciation of  the  words,  and  her  understanding  of  even 
Church  Latin  had  never  been  more  than  superficial. 

She  had  come  to  regard  it  as  part  of  that  pervading  and 
overwhelming  fatigue,  that  she  should  bring  nothing  but  a 
faint  distaste  to  her  compulsory  religious  exercises. 

Towards  the  close  of  Vespers  she  saw  a  lay-sister  come  on 

[233] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


tiptoe  into  the  chapel,  and  kneeHng  down  beside  Mother 
Gertrude's  da'is,  begin  a  whispered  communication. 

Immediately  a  feverish  agony  of  impatience  invaded  her. 

No  doubt  some  imperative  summons  to  an  interview  with 
the  parents  of  a  nun  or  a  child,  or  consultation  in  the  infirm- 
ary, where  two  or  three  little  girls  lay  with  some  lingering 
childish  ailment,  had  come  to  rob  the  Superior  of  her  antici- 
pated free  time. 

Alex,  in  nervous  despair,  saw  her  bend  her  head  in  acqui- 
escence. 

The  lay-sister  retired  as  noiselessly  as  she  had  come,  and 
Mother  Gertrude  closed  her  book. 

The  concluding  versicles  and  prayers  were  spoken  kneel- 
ing, and  Alex  was  compelled  to  turn  towards  the  High  Altar. 

She  was  quivering  from  heafld  to  foot,  and  gripped  the 
arms  of  her  stall  in  order  to  restrain  herself  from  turning 
her  head.  Every  nerve  was  strained  in  her  attempt  to  hear 
any  movement  at  the  back  of  the  chapel,  but  she  could  dis- 
tinguish nothing. 

The  few  minutes  that  elapsed  before  the  bell  sounded  for 
rising,  seemed  to  her  interminable. 

She  had  grown  accustomed  lately  to  the  grip  of  these  nerv- 
ous agonies,  to  which  she  became  a  prey  for  the  most  trivial 
of  causes. 

The  modern  exploitation  of  hysteria,  however,  was  still  in 
its  embryo  stage,  half-way  between  the  genteel  hysterics  of 
the  'sixties  and  the  suppressed  neuroticism  of  the  new 
century.  She  did  not  diagnose  her  complaint.  With  the 
sensation,  familiar  to  her,  of  blood  pumping  from  her  heart 
to  her  head,  making  her  face  burn,  while  her  hands  and  feet 
remained  dead  and  cold,  she  rose  from  her  knees. 

Although  she  had  expected  nothing  else,  a  feeling  of  sick 
disappointment  invaded  her  as  she  saw  that  the  Superior's 
place  had  been  noiselessly  vacated. 

With  leaden  feet,  she  moved  out  of  the  chapel  and  slowly 
resumed  the  black  apron  and  the  stuff  sleeves  that  protected 
her  habit. 

[234] 


BELGIUM 


In  the  absence  of  any  direct  order  to  the  contrary,  she  knew 
that  she  must  take  her  accustomed  place  in  the  class-room  of 
the  moyennes,  and  that  the  English  lesson  must  proceed  as 
usual. 

"  A  vos  places." 

She  -had  long  ago  learnt  to  speak  French  fluently,  but 
never  without  an  unmistakable  British  accent  and  intonation. 

Subconsciously  she  was  always  rather  relieved,  on  that 
account,  when  the  preliminaries  were  done  with,  and  the 
lesson  could  be  given,  according  to  the  rules,  in  the  English 
tongue. 

**  Simone  I    Begin,  please." 

Sister  Alexandra,  seated  at  the  desk,  held  the  book  open 
in  front  of  her,  and  her  eyes  rested  upon  the  page,  but  her 
mind  took  in  neither  the  meaning  of  the  printed  words 
nor  the  sense  conveyed  by  Simone's  droning,  inexpressive 
voice. 

She  wondered  whether  some  one  would  come  to  take  her 
place  at  the  desk  and  tell  her  that  Mother  Gertrude  was  wait- 
ing for  her  downstairs. 

A  sudden,  stealthy  opening  of  the  class-room  door  made 
her  look  up  with  a  flash  of  hope,  but  it  was  only  a  little  girl 
late  for  her  lesson  and  sidling  in,  hoping  to  escape  notice. 

Alex  did  not  even  trouble  to  give  her  the  accustomed  bad 
mark. 

It  would  have  meant  opening  her  desk,  and  pulling  out  the 
mistress's  note-book,  and  looking  for  a  pencil,  and  she  felt 
too  tired.  In  her  earlier  days  at  the  convent  she  would  have 
felt  ashamed  at  the  thought  of  yielding  to  such  slothful  un- 
concern, and  would  have  magnified  the  omission  into  a  sin, 
to  be  confessed  with  shame  to  Mother  Gertrude. 

Now,  she  was  too  tired  to  care,  and  besides,  she  never  saw 
Mother  Gertrude.  Even  the  poor  little  half-hour  that  had 
been  held  out  to  her  was  not  to  be  hers,  after  all.  She 
brooded  in  resentment  over  the  thought. 

A  titter  going  round  the  room  roused  her. 

"  What  are  you  saying,  Simone  ?  " 

[235] 


CONSEQUENCES 


Simone  stared  back  at  her  stupidly,  but  another  keen-faced 
girl  in  the  front  row  of  desks  spoke  eagerly : 

"  She's  said  nearly  all  through  the  lesson,  there's  nothing 
left  for  any  one  else  to  say." 

"  You  can  repeat  it  afterwards,"  said  Alex  coldly. 

She  was  vexed  that  her  inattention  should  have  been  be- 
trayed to  the  class,  and  presently  she  gave  her  full  attention 
to  the  recital. 

Just  as  it  was  over,  the  young  novice.  Sister  Agnes,  came 
into  the  room  and,  approaching  the  desk,  spoke  to  Alex  in  a 
lowered  voice: 

**  Mother  Gertrude  sent  me.  Sister.  Will  you  go  down  to 
her  and  wait  in  her  room  ?  She  will  come  in  a  moment.  I 
am  to  take  the  children  back  to  the  study-room  for  you." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Alex,  trembling.  The  revulsion  of 
feeling  was  so  strong  that  she  felt  the  chords  tightening  in 
her  throat,  which  denoted  approaching  tears,  such  as  she 
often  shed  for  no  adequate  reason.     She  left  the  room. 

The  Assistant  Superior's  room  on  the  ground  floor  was 
vacant. 

Alex  sat  down  on  the  low,  rush-bottomed  chair  drawn 
close  to  the  Superior's  table,  and  closed  her  eyes.  Now 
that  her  agony  of  suspense  was  ended,  she  became  even 
more  overwhelmingly  conscious  of  fatigue,  and  began  to 
wonder,  almost  against  her  will,  whether  Mother  Gertrude 
would  not  notice  it,  and  perhaps  tell  her  that  she  was  to  go 
to  bed  after  supper  and  not  come  to  the  recital  of  Office  in 
the  chapel. 

She  wondered  whether  she  looked  tired.  There  were  no 
looking-glasses  in  the  convent,  but  sometimes  she  had  seen 
her  own  reflection  in  the  big,  full-length  mirror  of  the  sac- 
risty, and  she  knew  that  she  had  lost  her  colour,  and  that 
her  face  had  grown  thin,  with  heavy,  black  circles  under- 
neath her  eyes.  She  knew,  too,  that  her  step  had  lost  any 
elasticity,  and  that  she  stooped  far  more  than  in  the  days 
when  Lady  Isabel  had  implored  her  to  "  hold  up  "  so  that 
her  pretty  frocks  might  be  seen  to  advantage. 

[236] 


BELGIUM 


Waiting  in  the  small  room,  with  its  carefully-closed  win- 
dow, and  the  big  writing-table  stacked  with  papers,  and  a 
great  crucifix  standing  upright  in  the  midst  of  them,  she 
began  for  the  first  time  to  speculate  as  to  the  reason  of  her 
summons. 

It  occurred  to  her,  with  a  slight  sense  of  shock,  that  such  a 
summons,  in  the  case  of  nun  or  novice,  had  very  often  been 
the  prelude  to  an  announcement  of  bad  news,  such  as  the 
death  of  a  relative  at  home. 

Hastily  she  pulled  out  Barbara's  letter  and  glanced 
through  it. 

There  was  no  hint  of  approaching  disaster  in  the  rather 
set  little  phrases,  and  the  four  small  sheets  were  mostly  con- 
cerned with  the  fact  that  Barbara  was  finding  it  necessary 
to  move  into  a  still  smaller  house  than  the  one  that  she  and 
Ralph  had  taken  at  Hampstead  after  their  improviaent 
marriage. 

Pamela  was  at  Clevedon  Square  with  Cedric  and  his  wife. 
She  was  going  to  heaps  of  parties,  and  every  one  thought 
her  very  pretty  and  amusing. 

There  was  no  mention  of  Archie,  and  Alex  hastily  ran- 
sacked her  memory  as  to  his  whereabouts. 

Since  the  first  year  of  her  novitiate  in  London  she  had 
never  seen  her  youngest  brother,  and  although  she  felt  a 
fleeting  sorrow  at  the  thought  of  harm  having  befallen  him, 
her  tenderness  was  for  the  little,  curly-haired  boy  in  a  sailor 
suit  with  whom  she  had  played  and  quarrelled  in  the  Cleve- 
don Square  nursery,  and  not  for  the  unknown  youth  of  later 
years. 

As  she  speculated,  the  well-known  tread  of  the  Assistant 
Superior  sounded  down  the  corridors  —  a  hasty,  decisive 
footstep.    Alex  sprang  to  her  feet  as  the  door  opened. 

"Oh,  what  is  it?"  she  cried,  at  the  first  sight  of  the 
Superior's  face. 

The  strong,  lined  countenance,  suffused  with  agitation, 
bore  every  mark  of  violent  disturbance. 

Her  deep  voice,  however,  was  as  well  under  control  as 

[237] 


CONSEQUENCES 


ever,  although  strong  emotion  underlay  its  vibrant  quality. 

"  My  little  Sister,  you  have  a  big  sacrifice  before  you.  I 
cannot  pretend  to  think  that  it  will  not  cost  you  dear,  as  it 
will  me.     But  we  know  Who  asks  it  of  us." 

"  What  ?  "  gasped  Alex  again,  utterly  at  a  loss,  but  feeling 
the  blood  ebb  from  her  face. 

"  Our  Mother-General  has  appointed  me  as  Superior  to 
the  new  house  in  South  America.  The  boat  sails  at  the  end 
of  this  week." 


[238] 


XX 

Aftermath 

ALEX  could  not  believe  the  extent  of  the  calamity  that 
had  befallen  her,  nor  did  she  realize  at  first  that  the 
very  mainspring  of  her  life  in  the  convent  was 
attacked. 

It  astounded  her  to  perceive  that  to  the  rest  of  the  com- 
munity the  news  brought  no  overwhelming  shock. 

Such  sudden  uprootings  and  transfers  were  not  uncom- 
mon, and  the  notice  given  was  generally  a  twenty- four  hour 
one.  Mother  Gertrude  had  nearly  a  week  in  which  to  make 
her  few  preparations  for  an  exile  that  almost  certainly  was 
for  life,  and  to  prepare  herself  as  far  as  possible  for  new 
and  heavy  responsibilities. 

The  Superior-General  was  herself  proceeding  to  South 
America  with  the  little  band  of  chosen  pioneers,  representa- 
tive of  almost  every  European  house  of  the  Order,  and  after 
inaugurating  the  establishment  of  the  new  venture,  was  to 
return  to  Liege,  with  one  lay-sister  only  as  companion. 

In  the  general  concern  for  her  welfare  and  admiration  of 
her  courage  in  undertaking  such  a  journey  on  the  eve  of  her 
sixty-third  birthday,  it  seemed  to  Alex  that  all  other  con- 
siderations were  overlooked  or  ignored  entirely. 

She  was  aware  that  the  convent  spirit  of  detachment,  so 
much  advocated,  and  the  consciousness  of  that  vow  of  obedi- 
ence made  freely  and  fully,  would  alike  preclude  the  possi- 
bility of  any  spoken  protest  or  lamentation  over  the  sepa- 
ration. 

The  severing  of  human  ties  was  part  and  parcel  of  a  nun's 
sacrifice,  and  her  life  was  in  the  hands  of  her  spiritual  su- 
periors. 

There  was  no  discussion  possible. 

[239] 


CONSEQUENCES 


Mother  Gertrude,  although  the  look  of  strain  was  deepen- 
ing round  her  eyes  and  mouth,  went  steadily  about  her  duties 
and  spared  herself  in  nothing. 

Her  place  was  to  be  taken  temporarily  by  a  French  nun 
who  had  been  for  many  years  at  Liege,  and  the  charge  was 
handed  over  with  the  least  possible  dislocation. 

It  was  on  a  Tuesday  night  that  Mother  Gertrude  had  been 
told  of  the  destiny  in  store  for  her,  and  on  the  following 
Saturday  she  was  to  proceed  with  her  Superior  to  Paris, 
and  thence  to  Marseilles  to  the  boat. 

Wednesday  and  Thursday  Alex  never  saw  her. 

She  had  expected  it,  and  was,  moreover,  far  too  much 
stunned  to  realize  anything  beyond  the  immediate  necessity 
for  taking  her  habitual  place  in  the  Community  life  without 
betraying  the  sense  of  utter  despair  that  was  hovering  over 
her. 

On  Friday  afternoon  Mother  Gertrude  said  to  her : 

"  I  have  not  had  one  spare  moment  to  give  you,  my  poor 
child.  But  I  think  you  know  everything  that  I  would  say 
to  you  ?  Be  very,  very  faithful.  Sister,  and  remember  that 
these  separations  may  be  for  life,  but  all  Eternity  is  be- 
fore us." 

Alex  could  capture  nothing  of  the  rapt  assurance  that  lay 
in  the  upraised  eyes  and  vibrant  voice. 

"  What  shall  I  do  without  you  ?  "  she  asked  despairingly, 
feeling  how  inadequate  the  words  were  to  voice  {ler  sense 
of  utter  deprivation. 

The  light,  watchful  eyes  of  the  Superior  seemed  to  pierce 
through  her. 

"  Don't  say  that,  dear  child.  You  do  not  depend  in  any 
sense  upon  another  creature.  I  have  been  nothing  to  you 
but  a  means  to  an  end.  It  was  given  to  me  to  help  you  a 
little,  years  ago,  to  find  your  holy  vocation.  You  know  that 
human  friendships  in  themselves  mean  nothing." 

Something  in  Alex  seemed  to  be  crying  and  protesting 
aloud  in  heart-broken  repudiation  of  the  formula  to  which 
her  lips  had  so  often  subscribed,  but  her  own  tacit  acquies- 

[240] 


AFTERMA  TH 


cence  of  years  rose  to  rebuke  her,  and  the  dread  of  vexing 
and  alienating  the  Supervisor  at  this  eleventh  hour. 

Dumbly  she  knelt  down  on  the  floor  beside  the  Superior's 
chair. 

Mother  Gertrude  looked  at  her  compassionately  enough, 
but  with  the  strange  remoteness  induced  by  the  long  cul- 
tivation of  an  absolutely  impersonal  relation  towards 
humanity. 

"  My  poor  little  Sister,  sometimes  lately  I  have  wondered 
whether  I  have  been  altogether  wise  in  my  treatment  of  you, 
and  whether  I  have  not  allowed  you  to  give  way  to  natural 
affection  too  much.  Perhaps  this  break  has  come  in  time. 
You  must  remember  that  you  have  renounced  all  earthly  ties, 
even  the  holiest  and  most  sacred  ones,  and  therefore  you 
must  be  ready  to  make  any  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  your  one, 
supreme  Love.  There  is  so  much  I  should  like  to  say  to 
you,  but  time  is  getting  short  now,  and  there  is  a  great 
deal  to  be  done.     God  bless  you,  my  child." 

The  Superior  laid  her  hand  on  Sister  Alexandra's  bent 
head. 

Alex  clasped  it  desperately. 

"  I  shall  still  be  your  child  always  ?  "  she  almost  wailed, 
with  a  weight  of  things  unspoken  on  her  heart,  and  in  a 
last  frantic  attempt  to  carry  away  one  definite  assurance. 

The  slightest  possible  severity  mingled  in  Mother  Ger- 
trude's clear  gaze,  bent  downwards  as  she  rose  to  her  full 
height,  her  carriage  as  upright  and  as  dignified  as  it  had 
been  ten  years  before. 

"  No,  Sister,"  she  said  very  distinctly.  "  You  will  be  the 
child  of  whatever  Superior  God  may  send  you  in  my  place." 

"  You  know  that  we  in  the  convent  have  no  human  ties, 
only  spiritual  ones.  You  will  see  your  Divine  Master,  and 
Him  only,  in  the  person  of  your  Superior  in  religion.  Re- 
member that,  little  Sister.  You  must  learn  detachment  if 
you  are  to  be  truly  faithful.  That  is  my  last  and  most 
earnest  counsel  to  you.  I  shall  pray  daily  that  you  may  be 
given  strength  to  follow  it." 

[241] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  Don't  go !  "  gasped  Alex,  hardly  knowing  what  she  said, 
as  she  saw  the  Superior's  hand  upon  the  door.  "  Don't  go 
away  like  that.  Oh,  Mother,  Mother,  how  shall  I  bear  it? 
I've  only  got  you  and  now  you're  going  away  for  ever." 

She  broke  into  tearless  sobs. 

"  Sister  Alexandra !  Has  it  come  to  this  ?  I  am  indeed 
to  blame  if  you  are  still  so  undisciplined  and  so  weak  as  to 
cling  to  a  mere  creature  —  you  that  have  been  chosen  by 
God  to  love  Him,  and  Him  only!  I  could  not  have  be- 
lieved it."  Mother  Gertrude's  tone  held  bitter  remorse  and 
shame. 

Alex'  old,  pitiful  instinct  of  propitiating  the  being  she 
loved  best  sprang  to  life  within  her. 

*'  No,  no,  I  didn't  really  mean  it.     I  know  I  mustn't." 

The  nun  gazed  at  her  in  compassionate  perplexity. 

"  You  are  overstrung,  and  tired ;  you  don't  know  what  you 
are  saying.  When  you  come  to  yourself,  my  poor  child,  you 
will  hardly  believe  that  you  could  have  proved  so  disloyal, 
even  for  a  moment." 

**  Now  calm  yourself,  and  do  not  attempt  to  join  the  recre- 
ation tonight.  You  are  not  fit  for  it.  I  will  tell  our 
Mother-General  that  I  have  told  you  to  go  to  your  cell  as 
soon  as  supper  is  over.     Good-night,  and  again  good-bye." 

Sheer  terror  at  the  bare  thought  of  being  left  there  alone 
forced  Alex  to  her  feet,  although  she  could  scarcely  stand, 
and  was  trembling  violently.  "  You  won't  forget  me  ?  "  she 
entreated  almost  inaudibly, 

"  I  shall  always  remember  you  in  my  prayers,  as  I  do  all 
those  who  have  been  under  my  direction.  Indeed,  you  will 
have  a  special  place  in  them,"  said  the  Superior  gravely, 
"  since  I  can  never  forget  that,  by  the  grace  of  God,  I  was 
instrumental  in  bringing  you  into  His  holy  house.  But 
never  forget  that  no  human  relation,  however  precious  it 
may  be,  can  have  any  completeness  in  itself.  It  all  has  to 
lead  on  to  the  one  supreme  thing,  Sister,  the  *  one  thing 
necessary.' 

**  Now  you  must  detain  me  no  longer."    She  freed  her- 

[242] 


AFTERM A  TH 


self  from  the  convulsive  grasp  that  Alex  had  unconsciously 
fastened  on  to  the  folds  of  her  habit  and  moved  unhesitat- 
ingly to  the  door. 

Alex  followed  her  with  eyes  that  stared  blankly  from  a 
blanched  face.  She  felt  as  though  she  was  under  a  spell  and 
could  neither  move  nor  speak.  She  could  not  believe  that 
Mother  Gertrude  would  really  leave  her  in  that  way.  The 
Superior  opened  the  door  and  passed  out,  closing  it  behind 
her  without  pausing  or  looking  back. 

Alex  heard  her  steps  receding,  rapid  and  measured,  along 
the  uncarpeted  corridor  outside. 

She  stayed  on  and  on  in  the  little  cold  room,  the  winter 
dusk  deepening  rapidly  outside,  the  silence  only  broken  by 
the  occasional  clanging  of  a  bell,  to  the  sound  of  which  she 
was  so  much  inured  that  it  hardly  struck  upon  her  senses. 
She  thought  that  Mother  Gertrude  would  come  back  to  her. 

There  must  be  some  other  last  words  between  them  than 
those  few  impersonal  counsels  of  perfection,  that  repudiated 
any  more  intimate  link  such  as  Alex'  exclusive  jealousy, 
stifled,  but  never  stronger  than  after  those  ten  years  of  re- 
pression, now  claimed  with  such  frantic  yearning. 

She  waited,  scarcely  moving.  She  grew  colder  and 
colder,  but  she  was  unconscious  of  her  icy  feet  and  leaden 
hands.     She  was  not  even  aware  of  consecutive  thought. 

Her  whole  body  was  absorbed  in  the  supreme  act  of  await- 
ing the  Superior's  return  for  the  word,  the  look,  that  should 
at  least  break  the  dreadful  darkness  that  encompassed  her 
soul  at  the  sudden  deprivation  of  that  one  outlet  which  had, 
unaware,  served  as  a  safety-valve  for  the  whole  craving 
dependence  of  her  spirit. 

Mother  Gertrude  did  not  come  back. 

Dusk  turned  rapidly  to  night,  and  the  distant  cries  and 
laughter  of  the  children's  evening  recreation  fell  into  a  quiet 
that  was  only  shattered  by  the  single  note  of  the  deep-toned 
bell  that  proclaimed  the  hour  of  silence  and  the  final  gath- 
ering of  the  Community  for  the  last  recital  of  the  Office  in 
the  chapel. 

[243] 


CONSEQUENCES 


There  was  the  flicker  of  a  Ught  along  the  passage  outside, 
and  the  door  opened  at  last. 

Alex  did  not  move. 

She  turned  anguished  eyes,  that  held  scarcely  any  compre- 
hension in  the  immensity  of  their  fatigue,  towards  the  enter- 
ing figure. 

It  was  that  of  the  old  Infirmarian,  who  put  down  the 
lighted  candle  and  threw  up  her  hands  of  dismay  as  her  gaze 
met  that  of  the  younger  nun.  Mindful  of  the  hour  of 
silence,  she  asked  no  question,  but  she  took  Alex  away  to  the 
convent  infirmary,  and  placed  her  in  a  bed  of  which  the  mat- 
tress seemed  strangely  and  wonderfully  soft  after  the  pail- 
lasse in  her  cell,  and  gave  her  a  hot,  sweet,  strongly  scented 
tisane  and  bade  her  sleep. 

"  Mais  demain  ?  "  whispered  Alex. 

She  was  thinking  of  the  early  departure  in  the  raw  morn- 
ing cold,  when  the  convoy  that  was  leaving  for  South  Amer- 
ica would  be  driven  away  from  the  convent.  But  the  In- 
firmarian shook  her  head  and  shuffled  slowly  away,  leaving 
the  room  in  darkness. 

She  was  old  and  very  tired,  and  for  her  there  was  no 
demain,  except  the  glorious  dawn  that  should  herald  the  day 
of  Eternity. 

Alex  lay  awake  in  the  merciful  darkness  and  envisaged 
the  culmination  of  long  years  of  stifled  repression  and  self- 
deception. 

She  knew  now,  as  she  had  never  let  herself  know  before, 
what  had  sustained  her  through  the  dragging  years  after 
the  final  objective  of  her  vows  had  been  left  behind. 

She  knew  that  she  had  thought  herself  to  be  answering  to 
a  call  of  God,  when  she  had  been  hearing  only  the  voice  of 
Mother  Gertrude,  and  had  been  craving  only  for  Mother 
Gertrude's  tenderness  and  approbation. 

Physical  pangs  of  terror  shot  through  her  and  shook  her 
from  head  to  foot  as  she  realized  to  what  she  had  bound 
herself,  which  now  presented  itself  to  her  overstrung  per- 
ceptions only  in  the  crudest  terms. 

[244] 


AFTERMA  TH 


To  live  without  earthly  affection,  to  relinquish  love  as 
she  understood  it,  in  terms  of  human  sympathy,  for  an 
ideal  to  which  she  knew,  with  tardy  and  unerring  certainty, 
that  nothing  within  her  would  ever  conform. 

She  knew  now,  with  that  appalling  clear-sightedness  to 
which  humanity  is  mercifully  a  stranger  until  or  unless  the 
last  outposts  of  sanity  are  almost  reached,  that  the  vocation 
of  which  they  all  spoke  so  glibly  had  never  been  hers. 

She  had  entered  a  life  for  which  her  every  instinct  de- 
clared her  to  be  utterly  unfitted,  in  search  of  that  which  her 
few  short  years  in  the  outside  world  had  denied  her.  The 
convent  instinct,  engrained  in  her  at  last,  added  to  the  an- 
guish of  startled  horror  at  the  wickedness  of  her  own  state 
of  mind. 

God  is  not  mocked,  she  thought.  Alex  had  tried  to  cheat 
God,  and  for  ten  years  He  had  stayed  His  hand  and  had  al- 
lowed her  deception  to  go  on. 

And  now  it  had  all  fallen  on  her  —  shame  and  punishment 
and  despair,  and  nowhere  any  human  help  or  consolation  to 
turn  to.  She  prayed  frenziedly  in  the  darkness,  but  no 
comfort  came  to  her.  She  stifled  in  the  pillow  the  imploring 
crying  aloud  of  Mother  Gertrude's  name  that  sprang  to  her 
lips,  but  with  a  pang  that  sickened  her,  she  recalled  the  Supe- 
rior's parting  from  her  that  evening,  her  undeviating  fidel- 
ity to  an  austere  ideal  which  should  also  have  been  Alex*. 

There  was  nothing  anywhere. 

And  with  that  final  certainty  of  negation  came  a  rigidity 
of  despair  that  no  terms  of  time  or  space  could  measure. 

Alex  fell  into  exhaustion,  then  into  a  state  of  coma  that 
became  heavy,  dreamless  sleep  enduring  far  into  the  next 
day.  She  woke  to  instant,  stabbing  recollection.  It  was  a 
grey,  leaden  day,  with  rain  lashing  the  window-panes,  and  at 
first  Alex  thought  that  it  might  be  still  early  morning,  but 
there  was  all  the  far-away,  indescribable  stir  that  tells  of  a 
household  when  the  day's  work  is  in  full  swing,  and  pres- 
ently she  realized  that  it  must  be  the  middle  of  the  morning. 

"  They  have  gone,"  she  thought,  but  the  words  conveyed 

[245] 


CONSEQUENCES 


no  meaning  to  her.  The  Infirmarian  came  in  to  her  and 
spoke,  and  asked  whether  she  felt  fit  to  get  up,  and  although 
on  the  day  before  Alex  had  so  craved  for  rest,  she  heard  her 
own  voice  replying  indifferently  that  she  thought  she  was 
quite  well,  and  that  she  was  ready  to  rise  at  once. 

"  You  are  sure  you  have  taken  no  chill  ?  You  must  have 
been  there  in  Mother  Gertrude's  room  for  a  long  time  after 
you  were  taken  faint.  .  .  .  Can  you  remember  ?  "  The  nun 
looked  at  her,  puzzled  and  anxious. 

"Did  I  faint?" 

"  I  think  so,  surely.  You  were  almost  unconscious  when 
I  came  in,  quite  by  chance,  and  found  you  there,  almost 
frozen,  poor  little  Sister!  Now  tell  me — ?"  The  old  In- 
firmarian put  a  few  stereotyped  questions  such  as  she  ad- 
dressed to  all  those  of  her  patients  whose  ailments  could  not 
be  immediately  diagnosed  at  sight. 

Alex'  matter-of-fact  replies,  for  the  most  part  denials  of 
the  suggested  ills,  left  her  no  wiser.  Finally  she  decided  on 
a  refroidissement.  "  Put  a  piece  of  flannel  over  your  chest," 
she  said  gravely,  "  and  you  had,  perhaps,  better  spend 
recreation  indoors  until  the  spell  of  cold  is  over." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Sister  Alexandra  lifelessly.  "  What 
time  is  it  ?  " 

**  Nearly  eleven.  Have  you  any  duties  for  which  you 
should  be  replaced  this  morning  ?  " 

"  There  are  a  lot  of  things,  I  think,"  said  Alex  vaguely, 
"  but  I  can  get  up." 

"  Very  well,"  the  Infirmarian  acquiesced  unemotionally. 
"  There  is  much  work  to  be  done,  as  you  say,  and  we  nuns 
cannot  afford  to  be  ill  for  long." 

Alex  did  not  think  that  she  was  ill  —  she  was  quite  able  to 
get  up  and  to  dress  herself,  although  her  head  was  aching 
and  her  hands  shook  oddly. 

She  reflected  with  dull  surprise  that  all  the  poignant  mis- 
ery of  the  days  that  had  gone  before  seemed  to  have  left 
her.    Evidently  this  was  what  people  meant  by  *' getting 

[246] 


AFTERMATH 


over  things."  One  suffered  until  one  could  bear  no  more, 
and  then  it  was  all  numbness  and  inertia. 

She  felt  a  sort  of  surprised  gratitude  to  God  at  the  cessa- 
tion of  pain,  as  one  who  had  undergone  torture  might  feel 
towards  the  torturers  for  some  brief  respite. 

Her  thankfulness  made  tears  come  into  her  eyes,  and  she 
forced  them  back  with  a  sort  of  wonder  at  herself,  but  that 
odd  disposition  to  weep  still  remained  with  her. 

As  she  went  downstairs,  rather  slowly  and  cautiously,  be- 
cause her  knees  were  shaking  so  strangely,  she  met  a  very 
little  girl,  the  pet  and  baby  of  the  whole  establishment,  climb- 
ing upwards.  She  was  holding  up  the  corners  of  her  dimin- 
utive black  apron  with  both  hands,  and  after  looking  at  the 
nun  silently  for  a  moment,  she  showed  her  that  it  contained 
two  tiny,  struggling  kittens.  "  Les  petits  enfants  de  Minet," 
she  announced  gravely,  and  went  on  climbing,  clasping  her 
burden  tenderly. 

Alex  could  never  have  told  what  it  was  that  struck  her 
with  so  unbearable  a  sense  of  pathos  in  the  sight  of  the  little 
childish  figure. 

Quite  suddenly  the  tears  began  to  pour  down  her  face,  and 
she  could  neither  have  checked  them  nor  have  assigned  any 
reason  for  them. 

She  went  on  downstairs,  wiping  the  blinding  tears  from 
her  sight,  and  amazed  at  the  violence  of  the  uncontrollable 
sobs  that  were  noiselessly  shaking  her. 

Something  had  suddenly  given  way  within  her  and  passed 
far  beyond  her  own  control. 

It  was  as  though  she  could  never  stop  crying  again. 


[247] 


XXI 

Father  Farrell 

FOR  what  seemed  a  long  while  afterwards  —  a  period 
which,  indeed,  covered  three  or  four  weeks  —  Alex 
learnt  to  be  intensely  and  humbly  grateful  for  the 
convent  law  that  would  not  allow  any  form  of  personalities 
in  intercourse. 

She  was  utterly  unable  to  cease  from  crying,  and  in  spite 
of  her  shame  and  almost  her  terror,  the  tears  continued  to 
stream  down  her  face  in  the  chapel,  in  the  refectory,  even 
at  the  hour  of  recreation. 

Nobody  asked  her  any  questions.  One  or  two  of  the  nuns 
looked  at  her  compassionately,  or  made  some  kindly,  little, 
friendly  remark;  a  lay-sister  now  and  then  offered  her  an 
unexpected  piece  of  help  in  her  work,  and  the  Infirmarian 
occasionally  sent  her  a  cup  of  bouillon  for  dinner,  but  it 
was  nobody^s  business  to  offer  inquiries,  and  had  any  one 
done  so,  the  rule  would  have  compelled  Sister  Alexandra  to 
reply  by  a  generality  and  to  change  the  conversation  with- 
out delay. 

Only  the  Superior  was  entitled  to  probe  deeper,  and  at 
first  the  Frenchwoman  who  was  temporarily  succeeding 
Mother  Gertrude  was  too  much  occupied  by  her  new  cares 
to  see  much  of  her  community  individually. 

Alex  was  relieved  when  the  Christmas  holidays  began, 
and  she  had  no  longer  to  fear  the  notice  of  the  sharp-eyed 
children,  but  in  the  reduction  of  work  surrounding  the  fes- 
tive season,  it  became  impossible  that  her  breakdown  should 
continue  to  pass  unnoticed.  She  did  not  herself  know  what 
was  the  matter,  and  could  scarcely  have  given  a  cause  for 
those  incessant  tears,  except  that  she  was  unutterably  weary 

[248] 


FATHER   FARRELL 


and  miserable,  and  that  they  had  passed  far  beyond  her  own 
control. 

The  idea  that  that  continuous  weeping  could  have  any  con- 
nection with  a  physical  nervous  breakdown  never  occurred 
to  her. 

It  was  with  surprise,  and  very  little  thought  of  cause  and 
effect,  that  she  one  night  noticed  her  own  extraordinary  loss 
of  flesh.  She  had  never  been  anything  but  thin  and  slightly 
built,  but  now  she  quite  suddenly  perceived  that  her  arms 
and  legs  in  the  last  two  months  had  taken  on  an  astounding 
and  literal  resemblance  to  long  sticks  of  white  wood.  All 
the  way  up  from  wrist  to  armpit,  her  left  hand,  with  thumb 
and  middle  finger  joined,  could  span  the  circumference  of 
her  right  arm. 

It  seemed  incredible. 

Her  mind  went  back  ten  years,  and  she  thought  of  Lady 
Isabel,  and  how  much  she  had  lamented  her  daughter's 
youthful  angularity. 

"If  she  could  have  seen  this !  "  thought  Alex.  "  But,  of 
course,  it  only  mattered  for  evening  dress  —  she  wouldn't 
have  thought  it  mattered  for  a  nun." 

Instantly  she  began  to  cry  again,  although  her  head 
throbbed  and  her  eyes  burned  and  smarted.  There  was  no 
need  now  to  wonder  if  she  looked  tired.  Accidentally  one 
day,  her  hand  to  her  face,  she  had  felt  the  sort  of  deeply- 
hollowed  pit  that  now  lay  underneath  each  eye,  worn  into  a 
groove. 

She  had  ceased  to  wonder  whether  life  would  ever  offer 
anything  but  this  mechanical  round  of  blurred  pain  and 
misery,  these  incessant  tears,  when  the  Superior  sent  for  her. 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  you.  Sister  ?  They  tell  me  you 
are  always  in  tears.     Are  you  ill  ?  " 

Alex  shook  her  head  dumbly. 

'*  Sister,  control  yourself.  You  will  be  ill  if  you  cry  like 
that.     Don't  kneel,  sit  down." 

The  Superior's  tone  was  very  kind,  and  the  note  of  sympa- 
thy shook  Alex  afresh. 

[249] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  Tell  me  what  it  is.     Don't  be  afraid." 

"  I  want  to  leave  the  convent  —  I  want  to  be  released  from 
my  vows." 

She  had  never  mieant  to  say  it  —  she  had  never  known  that 
such  a  thought  was  in  her  mind,  but  the  moment  that  the 
•  words  were  uttered,  the  first  sense  of  relief  that  she  had  felt 
surged  within  her. 

It  was  the  remembrance  of  that  rush  of  relief  that  enabled 
her,  sobbing,  to  repeat  the  shameful  recantation,  in  the  face 
of  the  Superior's  grave,  pitiful  urgings  and  assurance  that 
she  did  not  know  what  she  was  saying. 

After  that  —  an  appalling  crisis  that  left  her  utterly  ex- 
hausted and  with  no  vestige  of  belief  left  in  her  own  ultimate 
salvation  —  everything  was  changed. 

She  was  treated  as  an  invalid,  and  sent  to  lie  down  in- 
stead of  joining  the  community  at  the  hour  of  recreation, 
the  Superior  herself  devoted  almost  an  hour  to  her  every 
day,  and  nearly  all  her  work  was  taken  away,  so  that  she 
could  walk  alone  round  the  big  verger  and  the  enclosed 
garden,  and  read  the  carefully-selected  Lives  and  Treatises 
that  the  Superior  chose  for  her. 

Gradually  some  sort  of  poise  returned  to  her.  She  could 
control  her  tears,  and  drink  the  soups  and  tisanes  that  were 
specially  prepared  and  put  before  her,  and  as  the  year  ad- 
vanced, she  could  feel  the  first  hint  of  Spring  stirring  in  her 
exhaustion.  She  was  devoid  alike  of  apprehension  and  of 
hope. 

No  solution  appeared  to  her  conceivable,  save  possibly 
that  of  her  own  death,  and  she  knew  that  none  would  be 
attempted  until  the  return  of  the  Superior-General  from 
South  America. 

As  this  delayed,  she  became  more  and  more  convinced,  in 
despite  of  all  reason,  of  the  immutable  eternity  of  the  pres- 
ent state  of  aflFairs. 

It  shocked  her  when  one  day  the  Superior  said  to  her : 

"  You  are  to  go  to  the  Superior  of  the  Jesuits'  College  in 
the  parlour  this  afternoon.     Do  you  remember,  he  preached 

[250] 


FATHER   FARRELL 


the  sermon  for  your  Profession,  and  I  think  he  has  been 
here  once  or  twice  in  the  last  year  or  two?  He  is  a  very 
wise  and  clever  and  holy  man,  and  ought  to  help  you.  Be- 
sides, he  is  of  your  own  nationality." 

Alex  remembered  the  tall,  good-looking  Irishman  very 
well.  He  had  once  or  twice  visited  the  convent,  and  had 
always  told  amusing  stories  at  recreation,  and  preached 
vigorous,  inspiring  sermons  in  the  chapel,  with  more  than  a 
spice  of  originality  to  colour  them. 

The  children  adored  him. 

Alex  wondered. 

Perhaps  Father  Farrell,  the  clever  and  educated  priest, 
would  really  see  in  some  new  aspect  the  problem  that  left 
her  baffled  and  sick  of  soul  and  body. 

She  went  into  the  parlour  that  afternoon  trembling  with 
mingled  dread,  and  the  first  faint  stirrings  of  hope  that 
understanding  and  release  from  herself  and  her  wickedness 
might  yet  be  in  store  for  her. 

Father  Farrell,  big  and  broad-shouldered,  with  iron-grey, 
wavy  hair  and  a  strong,  handsome  face,  turned  from  the 
window  as  she  entered  the  room. 

**  Come  in,  Sister,  come  in.  Sit  down,  won*t  you  ?  They  tell 
me  ye've  not  been  well  —  ye  don't  look  it,  ye  don't  look  it !  " 

His  voice,  too,  was  big  and  bluff  and  hearty,  full  of  deci- 
sion, the  voice  of  a  man  accustomed  to  the  command  of  men. 

He  pushed  a  chair  forward  and  motioned  her,  with  a  quick, 
imperious  gesture  that  yet  held  kindness,  to  sit  down. 

He  himself  stood,  towering  over  her,  by  the  window. 

*'  Well,  now,  what's  all  the  trouble,  Sister?" 

There  was  the  suspicion  of  a  brogue  in  his  cultivated 
tones. 

Alex  made  a  tremendous  effort.  She  told  herself  that  he 
could  not  help  her  unless  she  told  him  the  truth. 

She  said,  as  she  had  said  to  the  French  Superior : 

"  I  am  very  unhappy  —  I  want  to  be  released  from  my 
vows  as  a  nun." 

The  priest  gave  her  one  very  quick,  penetrating  look,  and 

[251] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


his  thick  eyebrows  went  up  into  his  hair  for  an  instant,  but 
he  did  not  speak. 

"  I  don't  think  I  have  ever  had  any  —  any  real  vocation," 
said  Alex,  whitening  from  the  effort  of  an  admission  that  she 
knew  he  must  regard  as  degrading. 

"  And  how  long  have  ye  thought  ye  had  no  real  vocation  ?  " 

There  was  the  slightest  possible  discernible  tinge  of  kindly 
derision  in  the  inquiry. 

It  gave  the  final  touch  to  her  disconcertment. 

"  I  don't  know." 

She  felt  the  folly  of  her  reply  even  before  the  priest's 
laugh,  tinged  with  a  sort  of  vexed  contempt,  rang  through 
the  room. 

"  Now,  me  dear  child,  this  is  perfect  nonsense,  let  me 
tell  ye.  Did  ye  ever  hear  the  like  of  such  folly?  No  real 
vocation,  and  here  ye've  been  a  professed  religious  for  — 
how  long  is  it  ?  " 

"  Nearly  four  years  since  I  was  finally  professed,  but  — " 

"  There's  no  but  about  it,  Sister.  A  vow  made  to  Our 
Blessed  Lord,  I'd  have  ye  know,  is  not  like  an  old  glove,  to 
be  thrown  away  when  ye  think  ye're  tired  of  it.  No,  no, 
Sister,  that'll  not  be  the  way  of  it.  Ye'll  get  over  this,  me 
dear  child,  with  a  little  faith  and  perseverance.  It's  just  a 
temptation,  that  ye've  perhaps  been  giving  way  to,  owing  to 
fatigue  and  ill  health.  Ye  feel  it's  all  too  hard  for  ye,  is 
that  it?" 

"  No,"  said  Alex  frantically,  "  that's  not  it.  It's  nothing 
like  that.  It's  that  I  can't  bear  this  way  of  living  any  longer. 
I  want  a  home,  and  to  be  allowed  to  care  for  people,  and  to 
have  friends  again  —  I  can't  live  by  myself." 

She  knew  that  she  had  voiced  the  truth  as  she  knew  it, 
and  covered  her  face  with  her  hands  in  dread  lest  it  might 
fail  to  reach  his  perceptions. 

She  heard  a  change  in  Father  Farrell's  voice  when  next  he 
spoke. 

"  Ye'd  better  tell  me  the  whole  tale,  Sister.  Who  is  it  ye 
want  to  go  back  to  in  the  world  ? " 

[252] 


FATHER    FARRELL 


She  looked  up,  bewildered. 

"  Any  one  —  home."  Where  I  can  just  be  myself  again  — " 

"  And  how  much  home  have  ye  got  left,  after  being  a  nun 
ten  years  ?    Is  your  mother  alive  ?  " 

"  No." 

"Your  father?" 

"  No,"  faltered  Alex. 

"  They  died  after  ye  left  home,  I  daresay?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Then,  in  the  name  of  goodness,  who  do  ye  expect  is  go- 
ing to  make  a  home  for  ye  ?     Have  ye  sisters  and  brothers  ?  " 

*'  Yes."  Alex  hesitated,  seeing  at  last  whither  his  in- 
quiries were  tending. 

"  Yes,  and  I'm  thinking  they're  married  and  with  homes 
of  their  own  by  this  time,"  said  the  priest  shrewdly.  **  Let 
me  tell  ye,  ten  years  sees  a  good  many  changes  in  the  world, 
and  it  isn't  much  of  a  welcome  ye'd  get  by  breaking  your 
holy  vows  and  making  a  great  scandal  in  the  Church,  and 
then  planting  yourself  on  relations  who've  lost  touch  with 
ye,  more  or  less,  and  have  homes  of  their  own,  and  a  husband 
or  wife,  as  the  case  may  be,  and  perhaps  little  children  to 
care  for.  A  maiden  aunt  isn't  so  very  much  thought  of,  in 
the  best  of  circumstances,  let  me  tell  ye. 

"  Now  isn't  there  reason  in  what  I'm  saying.  Sister  ?  " 

Sick  conviction  shot  through  her. 

"  Yes,  Father." 

"  Well,  then,  ye'll  just  give  up  that  foolish  notion,  now." 

He  looked  at  her  w4iite,  desperate  face,  and  began  to  take 
long  strides  up  and  down  the  room. 

"  Have  ye  confidence  in  your  Superior?  Do  ye  get  on 
with  her  ?  "  he  asked  suddenly. 

"  Our  present  Superior  has  only  been  here  a  little  while  — 
the  one  before  that — " 

"  I  know,  I  know,"  he  interrupted  impatiently.  "  It's  the 
Superior-General  I  mean,  of  course  —  everything  must  come 
to  her  in  the  long  run,  naturally.  H<!ave  you  full  confidence 
in  her,  now  ?  " 

[253] 


CONSEQUENCES 


Alex  felt  as  incapable  of  a  negative  reply  as  of  an  affirma- 
tive one.  She  knew  that  she  did  not  understand  the  term 
"  full  confidence  "  as  he  did,  and  she  temporized  weakly. 

"  But  our  Mother-General  is  away  in  South  America  — 
she  keeps  delaying,  and  that's  one  reason  why  nothing  has 
been  settled  about  me.     She  hasn't  even  left  America  yet." 

"  Vm  well  aware  of  that.  Don't  waste  time  playing  with 
me  that  way,  Sister,  ye'U  get  no  further.  Ye  know  very 
well  what  I  mean.  Now,  tell  me  now,  will  it  do  for  ye  if  I 
arrange  for  your  transfer  to  another  house  —  maybe  to  the 
one  in  London,  or  somewhere  in  your  own  country  ?  " 

The  instinct  of  the  imprisoned  creature  that  sees  another 
form  of  the  same  trap  offered  it  under  the  guise  of  freedom, 
made  her  revolt. 

"  No,"  she  cried.  "  No !  I  want  to  get  right  away  —  I 
want  to  stop  being  a  nun." 

The  priest  suddenly  hit  the  table  with  his  clenched  fist, 
making  it  rock,  and  making  his  auditor  start  painfully. 

"  That's  what  you'll  never  do,  not  if  ye  got  release  from 
the  holy  vows  ten  times  over.  Once  a  nun  always  a  nun, 
Sister,  although  ye  may  be  false  and  faithless  and  go  back 
into  the  very  midst  of  the  world  ye've  renounced.  But  ye'U 
find  no  comfort  there,  no  blessing,  and  God'll  remember  it 
against  ye,  Sister.  A  soul  that  spurns  His  choicest  graces 
need  expect  no  mercy,  either  here  or  hereafter.  I  tell  ye 
straight.  Sister,  that  ye'U  be  deliberately  jeopardizing  your 
immortal  soul,  if  ye  give  in  to  this  wicked  folly.  Ye've  to 
choose  between  God  and  the  Devil  —  between  a  little  while 
of  suffering  here,  maybe,  and  then  Eternity  in  which  to  enjoy 
the  reward  of  the  faithful,  or  a  hideous  mockery  of  freedom 
here,  foUowed  by  Hell  and  its  torments  for  ever  and  ever. 
Which  is  it  to  be?" 

Alex  was  terrified,  but  it  was  the  priest's  anger  that  terri- 
fied her,  not  the  threats  that  he  uttered.  At  the  back  of  her 
mind,  lay  the  dim  conviction  that  no  Hell  could  surpass  in 
intensity  of  bitterness  that  which  her  spirit  was  traversing  on 
earth. 

[254] 


FA THER    FARRELL 


Father  Farrell  looked  at  her  frightened,  distorted  face, 
and  his  voice  sank  into  persuasiveness. 

"  This'U  pass,  me  dear  child.  Many  a  poor  soul  before 
ye  has  known  what  it  is  to  falter  by  the  wayside.  But 
courage.  Sister,  ye  can  conquer  this  weakness  with  God's 
help.     You're  in  no  trouble  about  your  faith,  now  are  ye  ?  " 

Had  Alex  been  able  to  formulate  her  thoughts  clearly,  she 
might  have  told  him  that  it  had  long  since  become  a  matter 
of  supreme  unimportance  to  her  whether  or  no  she  still 
possessed  that  which  he  termed  her  faith.  As  a  fact,  the 
beliefs  which  could  alone  have  made  the  convent  life  endur- 
able to  her,  had  never  struck  more  than  the  most  shallow  of 
roots  into  her  consciousness.  Perhaps  the  only  belief  which 
had  any  real  hold  upon  her  was  the  one  that  she  had  grad- 
ually formed  upon  her  experience  of  the  living  —  that  God 
was  a  Superior  Being  who  must  be  propitiated  by  the  sacri- 
fice of  all  that  one  held  dear,  lest  He  strike  it  from  one. 

She  looked  dimly  at  Father  Farrell,  and  shook  her  head, 
because  she  was  afraid  of  his  anger  if  she  owned  to  the 
utter  insecurity  of  her  hold  upon  any  religious  convictions. 

"  That's  right,  that's  right,"  he  said  hastily.  "  I  felt  sure 
ye  were  a  good  child  at  bottom.  Now  would  ye  like  to  make 
a  good  general  Confession,  and  I'll  give  ye  absolution,  and 
ye  can  start  again  ?  " 

Some  hint  of  inflexibility  in  the  last  words  roused  Alex  to 
a  final,  frantic  bid  for  liberty. 

"  It's  no  use  —  it  won't  do  for  me  to  begin  again.  I  can't 
stay  on.  If  I  can't  get  released  from  my  vows  I'll  —  I'll 
run  away." 

Then  there  was  a  long  silence. 

When  the  priest  spoke  again,  however,  his  voice  held  more 
of  meditative  speculation  than  of  the  anger  which  she  feared. 

"  Supposing  I  could  arrange  it  for  ye  —  I  don't  say  I 
could,  mind,  but  it  might  be  done,  if  good  reasons  were 
shown  —  what  would  ye  say  to  another  religious  order  alto- 
gether? It  may  be  that  this  life  is  unsuited  to  ye  —  there 
have  been  such  cases.     I  know  a  holy  Carmelite  nun  who 

[255] 


CONSEQUENCES 


was  in  quite  another  order  for  nearly  fifteen  years,  before 
she  found  out  where  the  Lord  really  wanted  her.  Are  ye 
one  of  those,  maybe  ?  " 

"  No,"  spoke  Alex,  almost  sullenly.  The  conflict  was 
wearing  her  out,  and  she  was  conscious  only  of  a  blind,  un- 
reasoning instinct  that  if  she  once  gave  ground,  she  would 
find  herself  for  ever  bound  to  the  life  which  had  become 
unendurable  to  her. 

"  What  d'ye  mean.  Not'' 

"  I  want  to  go  away.  I  want  to  be  released  from  my 
vows." 

The  formula  had  become  almost  mechanical  now.  The 
Jesuit  for  the  first  time  dropped  the  brusqueness  of  manner 
habitual  to  him. 

Pacing  the  length  of  the  big  parlour  with  measured,  even 
strides,  his  hands  clasped  behind  his  shabby  cassock,  he  let 
his  deep,  naturally  rhetorical  voice  boom  out  in  full,  rolling 
periods  through  the  room. 

"  Why  did  ye  come  to  me  at  all.  Sister  ?  It  wasn't  for 
advice,  and  it  wasn't  for  help.  I've  offered  both,  and  ye'U 
take  neither.  Having  put  your  hand  to  the  plough,  you've 
looked  back.  Ye  say  that  sooner  than  remain  faithful  ye'll 
run  away  —  ye'll  make  a  scandal  and  a  disgrace  for  the 
Community  that's  sheltered  ye,  and  bring  shame  and  sor- 
row to  the  good  Mothers  here.  What  did  ye  expect  me  to 
answer  to  that?  If  your  whole  will  is  turned  to  evil,  it  was 
a  farce  and  a  mockery  to  come  to  me  —  I  can  do  nothing. 

"  But  one  thing  I'll  tell  ye.  Sister.  If  ye  do  this  thing  — 
if  it  goes  up  to  Rome,  and  the  vows  ye  took  in  full  conscious- 
ness and  free  will  on  the  day  ye  were  professed,  are  dis- 
solved —  so  far  as  they  ever  can  be,  that  is,  and  let  me  tell 
ye  that  it's  neither  a  quick  nor  an  easy  business  —  if  it  comes 
to  that.  Sister,  there'll  be  no  going  back.  No  cringing  round 
to  the  convent  afterwards,  when  ye  find  there's  no  place  and 
no  welcome  for  ye  in  the  world,  asking  to  be  taken  back. 
They'll  not  have  ye.  Sister,  and  they'll  be  right.  If  ye  go, 
it's  for  ever.'* 

[256] 


FA THER    FARRELL 


It  seemed  to  Alex  that  he  was  purposely  seeking  to 
frighten  her  —  that  he  wanted  to  add  fresh  miseries  and 
apprehensions  to  those  already  piled  upon  her,  and  a  faint 
resentment  flicked  at  her  in  questioning  acceptance  of  such 
an  assumption. 

The  shadow  of  spirit  thus  restored  to  her,  just  enabled  her 
to  endure  the  seemingly  endless  exposition  hurled  at  her  in 
the  priest's  powerful  voice. 

When  it  was  all  over,  she  crawled  out  of  the  room  like  a 
creature  that  had  been  beaten. 

Stunned,  she  only  knew  that  yet  another  fellow-creature 
had  entered  the  league  of  those  who  were  angered  against 
her. 


[257] 


XXII 

Rome 

THE  crisis  passed,  as  all  such  must  pass,  and  Alex 
found  herself  in  the  position  openly  recognized  as 
that  of  waiting  for  the  dissolution  of  her  religious 
vows. 

It  was  as  Father  Farrell  had  said,  neither  a  short  nor  an 
easy  business,  nor  was  she  allowed  to  pass  the  months  of 
her  waiting  at  the  Liege  Mother-house. 

They  sent  her  to  a  small  house  of  the  Order  in  Rome, 
thinking,  with  the  curious  convent  instinct  for  misplaced 
economy,  to  save  the  petty  cost  of  incessant  passing  to  and 
fro  of  correspondence  and  documents,  between  the  convent 
in  Belgium  and  the  Papal  Secretariat  at  the  Vatican. 

Alex  went  to  Italy  in  a  dream.  It  struck  her  with  a  faint 
sense  of  irony  that  she  and  Barbara,  long  ago,  had  enter- 
tained an  ambition  to  visit  Italy,  standing  for  all  that  was 
romantic  and  picturesque  in  the  South.  After  all,  she  was 
to  be  the  first  to  realize  that  girlish  dream,  the  fulfilment  of 
which  brought  no  elation. 

At  first  she  lived  amongst  the  nuns,  and  led  their  life,  but 
when  it  became  evident  beyond  question  that  she  was  even- 
tually to  obtain  release  from  her  vows,  the  Community  held 
no  place  for  her  any  longer. 

Her  religious  habit  was  taken  away,  and  a  thick,  volumi- 
nous, black-stuff  dress  substituted,  which  the  nuns  thought 
light  and  cool  in  comparison  with  their  own  weighty  gar- 
ments, but  of  which  the  hard,  stiff  cuffs  and  high  collar,  un- 
relieved by  any  softening  of  white,  made  Alex  suffer  greatly. 

The  house  was  too  small  to  admit  of  a  pensionnat,  but  the 
nuns  took  in  an  inconsiderable  number  of  lady  boarders,  and 

[258] 


ROME 


an  occasional  pupil.  Alex,  however,  was  not  suffered  to 
hold  any  (intercourse  with  these.  After  her  six  months  spent 
in  Community  life  a  final  appeal  was  made  to  her,  and  when 
it  failed  of  its  effect  she  passed  into  a  kind  of  moral  ostra- 
cism. 

She  had  a  small  bedroom,  where  her  meals  were  served  by 
the  lay-sister  who  waited  on  the  lady-boarders,  and  a  little 
prie-dieu  was  put  in  a  remote  corner  of  the  chapel  for  her 
use,  neither  to  be  confounded  with  the  choir-stalls,  nor  the 
benches  for  visitors,  nor  the  seats  reserved  for  the  ladies 
living  in  the  house.  The  librarian  Sister,  in  charge  of  the 
well-filled  book-case  of  the  Community-rooms,  had  instruc- 
tions to  provide  her  with  literature.  Beyond  that,  her  exist- 
ence remained  unrecognized. 

She  often  spent  hours  doing  nothing,  gazing  from  the 
window  at  the  Corso  far  below,  so  curiously  instinct  with 
life  after  the  solitude  of  the  Liege  grounds,  encompassed  by 
high  walls  on  every  side. 

She  did  not  read  very  much. 

The  books  they  gave  her  were  all  designed  to  one  end  — 
that  of  making  her  realize  that  she  was  turning  her  back 
upon  the  way  of  salvation.  When  she  thought  about  it, 
Alex  believed  that  this  was,  in  truth,  what  she  was  doing, 
but  it  hardly  seemed  to  matter. 

Her  room  was  fireless,  and  the  old-fashioned  house,  as 
most  Roman  ones,  had  no  form  of  central  heating.  She 
shivered  and  shivered,  and  in  the  early  days  of  February  fell 
ill.  One  abscess  after  another  formed  inside  her  throat,  an 
unspeakably  painful  manifestation  of  general  weakness. 

One  evening  she  was  so  ill  that  there  was  talk  of  sending 
for  the  chaplain  —  the  doctor  had  never  been  suggested  — 
but  that  same  night  the  worst  abscess  of  all  broke  inside  her 
throat,  and  Alex  saw  that  there  was  no  hope  of  her  being 
about  to  die. 

The  bright  winter  cold  seemed  to  change  with  incredible 
rapidity  into  glowing  summer  heat,  and  a  modicum  of  well* 
being  gradually  returned  to  her. 

[259] 


CONSEQUENCES 


She  even  crept  slowly  and  listlessly  about  in  the  shade  of 
the  great  Borghese  gardens,  in  the  comparative  freshness  of 
the  Pincio  height,  and  wondered  piteously  at  this  strange 
realization  of  her  girlhood's  dream  of  seeing  Italy.  She 
never  dared  to  go  into  the  streets  alone,  nor  would  the  nuns 
have  permitted  it. 

Her  difficult  letters  to  England  had  been  written. 

Cedric  had  replied  with  courteous  brevity,  a  letter  so  much 
what  Sir  Francis  might  have  written  that  Alex  was  almost 
startled,  and  her  father's  man  of  business  had  written  her  a 
short,  kind  little  note,  rejoicing  that  the  world  was  again  to 
have  the  benefit  of  Miss  Clare's  society  after  her  temporary 
retirement. 

The  only  long  letter  she  received  was  from  Barbara. 

''  Hampstead, 
"March  30,  1908. 
**  Dearest  Alex, 

"  Your  letter  from  Rome  was,  of  course,  a  great  surprise. 
I  had  been  wondering  when  I  should  hear  from  you  again, 
but  I  did  not  at  all  guess  what  your  news  would  be  when  it 
came,  as  we  had  all  quite  grown  to  think  of  you  as  com- 
pletely settled  in  the  convent. 

"  I  am  afraid  that,  as  you  say,  there  may  be  complications 
and  difficulties  about  your  vows,  as  I  suppose  they  are  bind- 
ing to  a  certain  extent,  and  they  are  sure  not  to  let  you  off 
without  a  fuss. 

"  Your  letters  aren't  very  explicit,  my  dear,  so  I'm  still 
somewhat  in  the  dark  as  to  what  you  are  doing  and  when 
you  mean  to  come  to  London,  as  I  suppose  you  will  even- 
tually do.  And  why  Italy?  If  you're  going  to  get  out  of 
the  whole  thing  altogether,  it  seems  funny  that  the  convent 
people  should  trouble  to  send  you  to  Italy,  when  you  might 
just  as  well  have  come  straight  to  England.  However,  no 
doubt  you  know  your  own  affairs  best,  Alex,  dear,  and  per- 
haps you're  wise  to  take  advantage  of  an  opportunity  that 
may  not  come  again ! 

[260] 


ROME 


"  Travelling  has  always  been  my  dream,  as  you  know,  but 
except  for  that  time  I  had  at  Neuilly,  when  you  came  out  — 
Heavens,  what  ages  ago!  —  and  then  our  honeymoon  in 
Paris,  which  was  so  terribly  broken  into  when  dear  mother 
died,  I've  never  had  any  chance  at  all,  and  I  suppose  now  I 
never  shall  have.  Everything  is  so  expensive,  and  Fm 
really  not  a  very  good  traveller  unless  I  can  afford  to  do 
the  thing  comfortably,  otherwise  I  should  simply  love  to 
have  run  over  to  Rome  for  Easter  and  got  you  to  show  me 
all  the  sights. 

"  I  suppose  your  time  is  quite  your  own  now  ?  Of  course, 
when  you  really  do  leave  the  Sisters,  I  hope  you'll  come 
straight  to  my  wee  cottage  here  —  at  any  rate  while  you 
look  about  you  and  think  over  future  plans. 

"  Cedric  has  written  to  you,  I  know,  and  if  you  feel  you'd 
rather  go  to  Clevedon  Square,  needless  to  say,  my  dear,  I 
shall   more  than  understand.     Please  yourself   absolutely. 

"  But,  of  course,  one's  always  rather  chary  of  unknown 
sisters-in-law,  and  Violet  quite  rules  the  roost  now-a-days. 
She  and  Cedric  are  a  most  devoted  couple,  and  all  that  sort 
of  thing,  but  as  she's  got  all  the  money,  one  rather  feels  as 
if  it  was  her  house.  I  daresay  you  know  the  kind  of  thing 
I  mean. 

"  She's  quite  a  dear,  in  many  ways,  but  I  don't  go  there 
tremendously. 

"  Pamela  adores  her,  and  lives  in  her  pocket.  Pam  tells 
me  she  hasn't  seen  you  since  she  was  about  fifteen  —  I  could 
hardly  believe  it.  My  dear,  I  don't  know  what  you'll  think 
of  her!  She's  quite  appallingly  modern,  to  my  mind,  and 
makes  me  feel  about  a  hundred  years  old. 

"  When  I  think  of  the  way  we  were  chaperoned,  and  sent 
about  everywhere  with  a  maid,  and  only  allowed  the  dullest 
of  dinner-parties,  and  tea-parties,  and  then  those  stiff,  solemn 
balls!  Pamela  is  for  ever  being  asked  to  boy-and-girl 
affairs,  and  dinner  dances  and  theatre-parties  —  I  must  say 
she's  a  huge  success.  Every  one  raves  about  her,  and  she 
goes  in  for  being  tremendously  natural  and  jolly  and  full  of 

[261] 


CONSEQUENCES 


vitality  —  and  she's  had  simply  heaps  of  chances,  already, 
though  I  daresay  some  of  it  has  to  do  with  being  seen  about 
everywhere  with  Violet,  who  simply  splashes  money  out  like 
water.  She  paid  all  Archie's  debts,  poor  boy  —  I  will  say 
that  for  her.  The  result  is  that  he's  quite  good  and  steady 
now,  and  every  one  says  he'll  make  a  first-rate  Guardsman. 
"  Fm  writing  a  long  screed,  Alex,  but  I  really  feel  you 
ought  to  be  posted  up  in  all  the  family  news,  if  you're  really 
going  to  come  and  join  forces  with  us  again,  after  all  these 
years.  It  seems  quite  funny  to  think  of,  so  many  things 
have  happened  since  you  left  home  for  good  —  as  we 
thought  it  was  going  to  be.  Do  write  again  and  tell  me 
what  you  think  of  doing  and  when  you're  coming  over. 
My  tiny  spare-room  will  be  quite  ready  for  you,  any  time 
you  like.  "  Your  loving  sister, 

"  Barbara  McAllister." 

Barbara's  letter  was  astounding. 

Even  Alex,  too  jaded  for  any  great  poignancy  of  emotion, 
felt  amazement  at  her  sister's  matter-of-fact  acceptance  of  a 
state  of  affairs  that  had  been  brought  about  by  such  moral 
and  physical  upheaval. 

Had  Barbara  realized  none  of  it,  or  was  she  merely  utterly 
incurious  ?  Alex  could  only  feel  thankful  that  no  long,  ex- 
planatory letter  need  be  written.  Perhaps  when  she  got 
back  to  England  it  would  be  easier  to  make  her  explanation 
to  Barbara. 

She  could  hardly  imagine  that  return. 

The  affair  of  the  release  from  her  vows  dragged  on  with 
wearisome  indefiniteness.  Documents  and  papers  were  sent 
for  her  signature,  and  there  were  one  or  two  interviews, 
painful  and  humiliating  enough. 

None  of  them,  however,  hurt  her  as  that  interview  in  the 
parlour  at  Liege  with  Father  Farrell  had  done,  for  to  none 
of  them  did  she  bring  that  faint  shred  of  hope  that  had 
underlain  her  last  attempt  to  make  clear  the  truth  as  she 
knew  it. 

[262] 


ROME 


She  knew  that  money  had  been  paid,  and  Cedric  had  writ- 
ten a  grave  and  short  note,  bidding  her  leave  that  side  of  the 
question  to  his  care,  and  to  that  of  her  father's  lawyers. 

Then,  with  dramatic  unexpectedness,  came  the  end. 

She  was  told  that  all  the  necessary  formalities  had  been 
complied  with,  and  that  her  vows  were  now  annulled.  It 
was  carefully  explained  to  her  that  this  did  not  include 
freedom  to  marry.  The  Church  would  sanction  no  union 
of  hers. 

Alex  could  have  laughed. 

She  felt  as  though  marriage  had  been  spoken  of,  for  the 
first  time,  to  an  old,  old  woman,  who  had  never  known  love, 
and  to  whom  passion  and  desire  alike  had  long  been  as 
strangers.  Why  should  that,  which  had  never  come  to  her 
eager^  questing  youth,  be  spoken  of  in  connection  with  the 
strange,  remote  self  which  was  all  that  was  left  of  her 
now? 

She  reflected  how  transitory  had  been  the  relations  into 
which  she  had  entered,  how  little  any  intimacy  of  spirit  had 
ever  bound  her  to  another  human  being. 

Her  first  love  —  Marie- Angele : 

"  I  love  you  for  your  few  caresses, 
I  love  you  for  my  many  tears." 

Where  was  Marie- Angele  now  ?  Alex  knew  nothing  of  her. 
No  doubt  she  had  married,  had  borne  children,  and  some- 
where in  her  native  Soissons  was  gay  and  prosperous  still. 

Alex  dimly  hoped  so. 

Queenie  Torrance. 

Her  thoughts  even  now  dwelt  tenderly  for  a  moment  on 
that  fair,  irresponsive  object  of  so  much  devotion.  On 
Queenie  as  a  pale,  demure  schoolgirl,  her  fair  curls  rolled 
back  from  her  white,  open  brow,  in  her  black-stuff  dress  and 
apron.  On  Queenie,  the  blue  ribbon  for  good  conduct 
lying  across  her  gently-curving  breast,  serenely  telling  fibs 
or  surreptitiously  carrying  off  the  forbidden  sweets  and 
dainties  procured  for  her  by  Alex,  or  gazing  with  cold  vexa- 

[263] 


CONSEQUENCES 


tion  on  some  extravagant  demonstration  of  affection  that 
had  failed  to  win  her  approval. 

In  retrospect  Alex  could  see  Queenie  again,  the  white, 
voluminous  ball  dresses  she  had  worn,  the  tiny  wreath  of 
blue  forget-me-nots,  once  condemned  as  "bad  form"  by 
Lady  Isabel. 

On  Queenie  Goldstein  her  thoughts  dwelt  little.  She  had 
heard  long  ago  from  Barbara  of  Queenie's  divorce,  in  an 
action  brought  by  her  husband,  which  had  afforded  the  chief 
scandal  of  the  year  1899,  and  then  no  one  had  heard  or  even 
seen  anything  of  Queenie  for  a  long  while,  and  Barbara  had 
said  that  she  was  reported  to  be  abroad  with  her  father. 

Five  years  later  Barbara  had  written  excitedly : 

"  You  remember  that  awful  Queenie  Goldstein  ?  and  how 
full  the  papers  were  of  her  pictures,  when  that  dreadful 
divorce  case  of  hers  was  on,  and  the  five  co-respondents  and 
everything?  You'll  hardly  believe  it,  but  she's  in  London 
again,  having  succeeded  in  marrying  an  American  whom 
every  one  says  is  the  coming  millionaire.  I  saw  her  at  the 
theatre  myself,  in  a  box,  absolutely  slung  with  diamonds. 
She's  taken  to  making  up  her  face  tremendously,  but  she 
hasn't  altered  much,  and  she's  received  everywhere.  They 
say  her  husband  simply  adores  her." 

Alex  still  remembered  the  rebuke  with  which  Mother  Ger- 
trude had  handed  her  that  letter,  bidding  her  remind  her  sis- 
ter that  things  of  the  world,  worldly,  had  no  place  in  the  life 
of  a  nun. 

Nevertheless,  although  she  had  put  the  thought  from  her, 
she  knew  that  in  her  heart  she  had  felt  a  certain  gladness 
that  her  erstwhile  playmate,  given  over  though  she  might 
be  to  the  world,  the  flesh  and  the  Devil,  had  yet  not  found 
those  things  that  she  coveted  to  have  failed  her. 

Queenie,  at  least,  had  known  what  she  wanted,  and  Alex' 
thoughts  of  her  held  no  condemnation. 

From  Queenie,  her  mind  went  to  the  memory  of  Noel 
Cardew,  and  she  was  faintly  surprised  at  the  unvivid  pre- 
sentment of  him  which  was  all  that  she  could  evoke. 

[264] 


ROME 


Noel  had  held  no  real  place  in  her  life  at  all. 

Nothing  that  would  endure  had  ever  passed  between  him 
and  her.  It  was  years  since  she  had  thought  of  their  ill- 
starred  engagement,  and  then  it  had  always  been  in  connec- 
tion with  Sir  Francis  and  Lady  Isabel  —  their  brief  pride 
and  pleasure  in  it,  and  the  sudden  downfall  of  their  hopes. 

Of  Noel  himself  she  had  scarcely  a  recollection.  Perhaps 
her  clearest  one  was  that  of  the  earnest  young  egoist,  only 
made  attractive  by  a  certain  simplicity,  who  had  taken  her  to 
sit  in  a  disused  ice-house  one  hot  summer  day,  and  had 
talked  about  photography.  Of  the  later  Noel,  Alex  was 
astounded  to  find  that  she  retained  no  impression  at  all. 

She  could  not  even  remember  whether  it  was  he  or  his 
brother  Eric  who  had  married  red-haired  Marie  Munroe  in 
the  same  year  that  she  herself  had  taken  her  first  vows  as 
a  nun. 

Perhaps  it  was  Noel. 

At  all  events,  he  had  probably  married  long  ago,  and  Alex 
could  believe  that  some  corner  of  land  in  Devonshire  was 
the  better  for  the  earnest  supervision  that  he  would  accord 
to  it,  both  in  his  own  person  and  in  that  of  the  generation 
that  would  doubtless  succeed  him. 

Mother  Gertrude. 

At  the  last  and  most  worshipped  of  the  shrines  before 
which  Alex  had  offered  the  sad,  futile,  unmeasured  burnt- 
offerings  of  her  life,  her  thoughts  lingered  least. 

It  had  all  been  a  mistake. 

She  had  given  recklessly,  foolishly,  squandering  her  all 
because  life  had  cheated  her  of  any  outlet  for  a  force  of  the 
strength  of  which  she  had  had  no  measure  given  her,  and 
now  she  had  to  pay  the  bitter  penalty  for  a  folly  which  had 
not  even  been  met  by  answering  human  affection. 

She  wrote  no  letter  to  Mother  Gertrude,  and  received  no 
word  from  her. 

As  the  days  crept  on,  Alex,  without  volition  of  her  own, 
found  that  her  journey  to  England  had  been  arranged  for  — 
that  money  was  to  be  advanced  to  her  for  her  expenses, 

[265] 


CONSEQUENCES 


that  she  was  expected  to  supplement  with  it  her  utter  penury 
of  worldly  possessions.  One  day  she  went  out,  frightened 
and  at  a  loss,  and  entered  some  of  the  first  shops  she  saw,  in 
a  street  that  led  down  from  the  Pincio  Gates. 

They  were  not  large  shops,  and  she  had  difficulty  in  mak- 
ing herself  understood,  but  she  purchased  a  ready-made  blue- 
serge  skirt,  with  a  coat  that  she  called  a  jacket,  and  an  ugly 
black  toque,  that  most  resembled  in  shape  those  that  she 
remembered  seeing  in  London  ten  years  earlier.  She  wore 
these  clothes,  with  a  white  cotton  blouse  that  fastened  at  the 
back  and  came  high  up  under  her  chin,  for  some  days  before 
she  left  Rome,  so  as  to  grow  accustomed  to  them,  and  to 
lose  the  sense  of  awkwardness  that  they  produced  in  her. 

The  heavy  boots  and  a  pair  of  black-cotton  gloves  that  slie 
had  brought  from  Belgium,  still  served  her.  The  day  of  her 
departure  was  fixed,  and  she  wrote  to  Barbara,  but  she  knew 
neither  by  what  route  she  was  going  nor  how  long  the 
journey  would  take. 

Her  companions,  selected  by  the  Superior  of  the  convent, 
proved  to  be  an  old  lady  and  her  daughter  who  were  going 
to  Paris.  Evidently  they  knew  her  story,  for  they  looked 
at  her  with  scared,  curious  faces  and  spoke  to  her  very  little. 
Both  were  experienced  travellers,  and  on  the  long,  hot  jour- 
ney in  the  train,  when  it  seemed  as  though  the  seats  of  the 
railway  carriage  were  made  of  molten  iron,  they  extended 
themselves  with  cushions  and  little  paper  fans,  and  slept 
most  of  the  way.  At  Genoa  the  daughter,  timidly,  but  with 
kindness,  pressed  Alex  to  eat  and  drink,  and  after  that  she 
spoke  to  her  once  or  twice,  and  gave  her  a  friendly  invita- 
tion to  join  them  at  the  small  pension  in  Paris  to  which  they 
were  bound,  for  a  night's  halt  before  she  proceeded  to  Bou- 
logne and  thence  to  England.  Alex  accepted  with  bewil- 
dered thankfulness. 

She  was  weak  and  exhausted,  and  the  old  lady  and  her 
daughter  were  pitiful  enough,  and  saw  her  into  the  train 
next  day,  and  gave  her  the  provision  of  sandwiches  which 
she  had  not  thought  to  make  for  herself. 

[266] 


ROME 


The  train  sped  through  flat,  green  country,  with  tall  pop- 
lars shading  the  small,  narrow  French  houses  that  dotted  the 
line  on  either  side.  Her  eye  dilated  as  she  gazed  on  the 
sea,  when  at  last  Boulogne  was  reached. 

She  remembered  the  same  grey  expanse  of  rolling  waves 
tipped  with  foam  on  the  morning,  eight  years  ago,  when  the 
girl  Alex  Clare  had  crossed  to  Belgium,  tearful,  indeed,  and 
frightened,  but  believing  herself  to  be  making  that  new 
beginning  which  should  lead  to  the  eventual  goal  which  life 
must  surely  hold  in  store  for  her. 

Only  eight  years,  and  the  bitterness  of  a  lifetime's  failure 
encompassed  her  spirit 


[267] 


XXIII 

N.W. 

ALEX  got  off  the  boat  at  Folkestone,  dazed  and  be- 
wildered. She  had  been  ill  all  through  the  crossing, 
and  her  head  was  still  swimming.  She  grasped  her 
heavy,  clumsy  suit-case  and  was  thankful  to  have  no  lug- 
gage, when  she  saw  the  seething  crowd  of  passengers,  run- 
ning after  uniformed  porters  in  search  of  heavy  baggage 
that  was  being  flung  on  to  trucks  to  an  accompaniment  of 
noise  and  shouting  that  frightened  her. 

She  made  her  way  to  the  train  and  into  a  third-class  car- 
riage, too  much  afraid  of  its  starting  without  her  to  dare  to 
go  in  search  of  the  hot  tea  which  she  saw  the  passengers 
drinking  thankfully.  It  was  a  raw,  grey  day,  and  Alex,  in 
her  thin  serge  coat  and  skirt,  that  had  been  so  much  too  hot 
in  Italy,  shivered  violently.  Her  gloves  were  nearly  thread- 
bare and  her  hands  felt  clammy  and  stiff.  She  took  off  her 
little  black-straw  toque  and  leant  her  head  against  the  back 
of  the  seat,  wishing  that  she  could  sleep. 

It  seemed  to  her  that  the  other  people  in  the  carriage  were 
looking  at  her  suspiciously,  and  she  closed  her  eyes  so  as  not 
to  see  them. 

After  a  long  while  the  train  started. 

Alex  tried  to  make  plans.  In  the  shabby  purse  which  she 
had  clasped  in  her  hand  all  the  way,  for  fear  of  its  being 
stolen,  was  a  piece  of  paper  with  Barbara's  address.  She 
would  not  go  to  Clevedon  Square,  for  fear  of  Cedric's  un- 
known wife.  Cedric  with  a  wife  and  child!  Alex  mar- 
velled, and  could  not  believe  that  she  might  soon  make  the 
acquaintance  of  these  beings  who  seemed  to  her  so  nearly 
mythical. 

The  thought  of  Barbara  as  a  widow  living  in  a  little  house 

[268] 


N.W\ 

of  her  own  in  Hampstead,  seemed  far  less  unfamiliar.  Bar- 
bara had  always  written  regularly  to  Alex,  and  had  twice 
been  to  see  her  when  she  was  in  the  English  house  and  once 
in  her  early  days  in  Belgium. 

Barbara  had  often  said  in  her  letters  that  she  was  very 
lonely,  and  that  it  was  terrible  having  to  live  so  far  out  of 
town  because  of  expenses.  Ralph,  door  dear,  had  left  her 
very,  very  badly  off,  and  there  had  been  very  little  more  for 
her  on  the  death  of  Sir  Francis.  Alex  supposed  that  Down- 
shire  Hill  must  be  a  very  unfashionable  address,  but  she  did 
not  connect  "  N.W.'^  with  any  particular  locality. 

She  was  always  very  stupid  at  finding  her  way  about,  and, 
anyhow,  her  bag  was  heavy.  She  decided  that  she  would 
take  a  cab. 

At  Charing  Cross  it  was  raining,  and  the  noise  was  deaf- 
ening. Alex  .had  meant  to  send  Barbara  a  telegram  from 
Folkestone,  but  had  not  known  where  to  find  the  telegraph 
ofiice,  and  she  now  realized  with  a  pang  of  dismay  that  her 
sister  would  not  be  expecting  her. 

"  How  stupid  I  am,  and  how  badly  I  manage  things,"  she 
thought.     "  I  hope  she  won't  be  out." 

The  number  of  taxis  at  the  station  bewildered  Alex,  who 
had  only  seen  one  or  two  crawling  about  the  streets  in 
Rome,  and  had  heard  of  them,  besides,  as  ruinously  expen- 
sive. She  found  a  four-wheeled  cab  and  put  her  bag  on  the 
floor.  The  man  did  not  get  down  from  his  box  to  open  the 
door  for  her,  as  she  expected.  He  leant  down  and  asked 
hoarsely. 

"  Where  d'you  want  to  go.  Miss  ?  " 

"  Downshire  Hill,"  said  Alex.      "  No.  loi." 

"  Downshire  Til  ?    Where's  that  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Alex,  frightened.  She  wondered  if 
the  man  was  drunk,  and  prepared  to  pull  her  bag  out  of  the 
cab  again. 

"  'Alf  a  minute." 

He  called  out  something  unintelligible  to  another  driver, 
and  received  an  answer. 

[269] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  Downshire  llFs  N.W.,"  he  then  informed  her.  "  Out 
'Ampstead  w'y." 

"  Yes,"  said  Alex.    "  Can't  you  take  me  there?  " 

He  looked  at  her  shabby  clothes  and  white,  frightened 
face. 

"  I'd  like  to  see  my  fare,  first,  if  you  please,"  he  said 
insolently. 

Alex  was  too  much  afraid  of  his  making  a  scene  to  refuse. 

"How  much  will  it  be?" 

"  Seven  and  sixpence,  Miss." 

She  pulled  two  half-crowns  out  of  her  purse.  It  was  all 
she  had  left. 

"  This  is  all  the  change  I  have,"  she  told  him  in  a  shaking 
voice.     "  They  will  pay  the  rest  when  I  get  there." 

He  muttered  something  dissatisfied,  but  put  the  coins  into 
his  pocket. 

Alex  climbed  into  the  cab. 

It  jolted  away  very  slowly. 

The  rain  was  falling  fast,  and  dashing  against  the  win- 
dows of  the  cab.  Alex  glanced  out,  but  the  streets  through 
which  they  were  driving  were  all  unfamiliar  to  her.  It 
seemed  a  very  long  way  to  Downshire  Hill. 

She  began  to  wonder  very  much  how  Barbara  would  re- 
ceive her,  arid  how  she  could  make  clear  to  her  the  long, 
restless  agony  that  had  led  her  to  obtain  release  from  her 
vows.    Would  Barbara  understand? 

Letters  had  been  very  inadequate,  and  although  Barbara 
had  written  that  Alex  had  better  come  to  her  for  a  while  if 
she  meant  to  return  to  England,  she  had  given  no  hint  of 
any  deeper  comprehension. 

"  We  must  make  plans  when  we  meet,"  she  had  written  at 
the  end  of  the  letter. 

Alex  wondered  with  a  sense  of  apprehension  what  those 
plans  would  be.  She  had  for  so  long  become  accustomed  to 
being  treated  as  a  chattel,  without  volition  of  her  own,  that 
it  did  not  occur  to  her  that  she  would  have  any  hand  in 
forming  her  future  life. 

[270] 


N.W. 

Presently  she  became  conscious  that  the  rain  had  stopped, 
and  that  the  atmosphere  was  lighter.  She  let  down  the  glass 
of  the  window  nearest  her,  and  saw,  with  surprise,  that  there 
was  a  rolling  expanse  of  green,  with  a  number  of  willow- 
trees,  on  one  side  of  the  road.     It  did  not  look  like  London. 

Then  the  cab  turned  a  corner,  and  Alex  saw  "  Downshire 
Hill "  on  a  small  board  against  the  wall. 

This  was  where  Barbara  lived,  then. 

The  little  houses  were  small  and  compact,  but  of  agree- 
ably varying  height  and  shape,  with  a  tiny  enclosure  of  green 
in  front  of  each,  protected  by  railings  and  a  little  gate.  No. 
loi,  before  which  the  cab  drew  up,  had  a  bush  that  Alex 
thought  must  be  lilac,  and  was  covered  with  ivy.  There 
were  red  blinds  to  the  windows. 

She  got  out,  pulling  her  heavy  bag  after  her,  and  timidly 
pushed  open  the  little  gate,  glancing  up  at  the  windows  as 
she  did  so. 

There  was  no  one  to  be  seen. 

Still  clutching  at  her  suit-case,  Alex  pulled  the  bell  faintly. 

"There's  half  my  fare  owing  yet,"  said  the  cabman 
gruffly. 

Thus  reminded,  Alex  rang  again. 

An  elderly  parlour-maid  with  iron-grey  hair  and  a  'hard 
face  opened  the  door. 

"Is  — is  Mrs.  MacAllister  at  home?"  faltered  Alex. 

"  I'll  inquire,"  said  the  maid,  with  a  lightning  glance  at 
the  suit-case. 

She  left  the  door  open,  and  Alex  saw  a  little  flight  of  stairs. 
A  murmured  colloquy  took  place  at  the  top,  and  then  Bar- 
bara, slight  and  severely  black-clad,  came  down. 

"Alex,  that's  not  you?" 

"Yes.     Oh,  Barbara!" 

"  My  dear  —  I've  been  expecting  to  hear  from  you  every 
day!  I've  been  imagining  all  sorts  of  awful  things.  Why 
didn't  you  wire?  Do  come  in  —  you  must  be  dead,  and 
have  you  been  carrying  that  huge  bag?  " 

"  I  came  from  the  station  in  a  cab." 

[271] 


CONSEQUENCES, 


"  A  cab ! "  echoed  Barbara  in  rather  a  dismayed  voice. 
"  What  a  long  way  to  come,  when  you  could  have  done  it 
so  easily  by  the  underground  railway  —  but  I  suppose  you 
didn't  know?*' 
"  No,"  repeated  Alex  blankly.  *'  I  didn't  know." 
"  What's  he  waiting  for  ?  Will  he  carry  your  trunk  up- 
stairs?" 

"  That  is  all  the  luggage  I  have,  and  I  can  carry  it  up 

quite  well,  and  it  isn't  heavy.     But  I  hadn't  quite  enough 

money  for  the  fare  —  he  ought  to  have  another  half-crown." 

"  Oh,  dear,"  said  Barbara.     "  Wait  a  minute,  then,  Alex." 

She  disappeared  up  the  stairs,  leaving  Alex  alone  with  the 

severe  parlour-maid,  who  still  held  open  the  front  door. 

She  leant  against  the  wall  in  the  tiny  passage,  wondering 
what  she  had  expected  of  her  actual  arrival,  that  the  reality 
should  give  her  such  a  sense  of  misery. 

If  only  she  had  telegraphed  to  Barbara  from  Folkestone ! 
"  Here's  two  shillings.    Ada,  have  you  got  a  sixpence,  by 
any  chance  ?  " 

"  There's  sixpence  in  the  kitchen,  *m,"  said  Ada,  and 
fetched  it. 

"  There !  "  said  Barbara.    *'  Pay  him  then,  please,  Ada. 
Now,  Alex,  come  upstairs  and  sit  down.    You  look  dread- 
fully ill  and  worn-out,  my  dear." 
Alex  lifted  the  suit-case  again. 

"  Oh,  Ada  will  see  to  that.  Your  room  is  all  ready,  Alex. 
It's  very  small,  but  then  the  house  is  a  perfect  doll's  house, 
as  you  see.    This  is  my  tiny  drawing-room." 

"  It's  very  pretty,"  said  Alex,  sinking  into  a  chair. 
**  It's  not  bad  —  the  things  are  nice  enough.     Ralph  had 
some  exquisite  things  —  but,  of  course,  the  house  is  too  hate- 
ful, and  I  hate  living  all  the  way  out  here.     No  one  ever 
comes  near  me.     Cedric's  wife  can't  get  her  chauffeur  to 
bring  her  —  he  pretends  he  doesn't  know  where  it  is.    The 
only  person  who  ever  comes  is  Pamela." 
"  I  thought  she  was  to  live  with  you  ?  " 
"  Pam !    Oh,  she  wouldn't  bury  herself  out  here,  for  long. 

[272] 


N.JV. 

Pam's  very  much  in  request,  my  dear.  She*s  been  paying 
visits  all  over  the  place,  and  can  go  on  indefinitely,  I  be- 
lieve. She  makes  her  headquarters  with  Cedric  and  Violet 
in  Clevedon  Square,  you  know,  but  of  course  she'll  marry. 
Pam's  all  right.'' 

"  Last  time  I  saw  Pam  she  was  in  short  frocks  and  a  pig- 
tail." 

"  She's  come  out  in  the  most  extraordinary  way.  Every 
one  says  so.  Not  exactly  pretty,  but  frightfully  taking,  and 
most  awfully  attractive  to  men.  They  say  she's  so  full  of 
life.  I  must  say,  when  we  came  out,  Alex,  we  didn't  have 
nearly  such  a  good  time  as  she  has.  Men  seem  to  go  down 
like  ninepins  before  her.  She's  always  bringing  them  out 
here  to  tea,  and  to  look  at  the  view  of  London  from  the 
Heath.  One  always  used  to  look  on  Hampstead  Heath  as 
a  sort  of  joke — Phil  May's  drawings,  and  that  kind  of 
thing.  I  certainly  never  expected  to  live  here  —  but  lots 
of  artists  do,  and  Ralph  had  a  big  studio  here.  And  it's  very 
inexpensive.  Besides,  if  you  know  you  way  about,  it's  quite 
easy  to  come  in  and  out  from  town.  Pamela  always  brings 
her  young  men  on  the  top  of  a  'bus.  Girls  can  do  anything 
now-a-days,  of  course.  Fancy  father,  if  one  of  us  had  done 
such  a  thing !  " 

"  Who  looks  after  her  ?  "  asked  Alex,  rather  awe-struck. 

"  She  looks  after  herself,  my  dear,  and  does  it  uncom- 
monly effectively.  She  could  marry  tomorrow  if  she  liked 
—  and  marry  well,  too.  Of  course,  Cedric  is  her  guardian 
in  a  sort  of  way,  I  suppose,  but  he  lets  her  do  anything  she 
like  —  only  laughs." 

"  Cedric ! "  spoke  Alex  wistfully.  **  Do  you  know,  I 
haven't  seen  Cedric  since  —  I  left  Clevedon  Square." 

"My  dear,  that's  ten  years,  isn't  it?  Cedric's  grown 
exactly  like  father.  He's  got  just  his  way  of  standing  in 
front  of  the  fire  and  shaking  his  spectacles  up  and  down 
in  his  hand  —  you  remember  father's  way?  Of  course,  he's 
done  extraordinarily  well  —  every  one  says  so  —  and  his 
marriage  was  an  excellent  thing,  too." 


CONSEQUENCES 


« Is —  Violet  — nice?" 

Barbara  laughed  rather  drily. 

"  She's  got  a  lot  of  money,  and  —  yes,  I  suppose  she  is 
nice.  Between  ourselves,  Alex,  she's  the  sort  of  person  who 
rather  aggravates  me.  She's  always  so  prosperous  and 
happy,  as  though  nothing  had  ever  gone  wrong  with  her,  or 
ever  could.  She's  very  generous,  I  will  say  that  for  her  — 
and  extraordinarily  good-natured.  Most  people  adore  her 
—  she's  the  sort  of  woman  that  other  women  rave  about, 
but  I  must  say  most  men  like  her,  too.  Her  people  were 
rather  inclined  to  think  she  could  have  done  better  for  her- 
self than  Cedric.  Of  course,  he  isn't  well  off,  and  she's 
two  years  older  than  he  is.  But  it's  answered  all  right,  and 
they  were  tremendously  in  love  with  one  another." 

"  Is  she  very  pretty  ?  " 

"  She's  inclined  to  be  fat,  but,  of  course,  she  is  pretty,  in 
her  own  style  —  very.  And  the  little  girl  is  a  perfect  dar- 
ling—  little  Rosemary. 

"  But,  Alex,  here  am  I  talking  you  to  death  when  you 
must  be  dying  for  tea.  What  sort  of  a  crossing  did  you 
have?" 

**  Not  very  bad,  but  I  was  ill  all  the  way." 

"  Oh,  no  wonder  you  look  so  washed  out,"  said  Barbara, 
as  though  relieved,  but  she  went  on  eyeing  her  sister  uneasily 
through  the  rapidly  increasing  dusk. 

When  Ada  came  in  with  the  tea  appointments,  Barbara 
told  her  to  bring  the  lamp. 

"  Yes'm.    And  your  bag,  'm  —  may  I  have  the  key  ?  " 

Alex  looked  bewildered,  then  recollected  that  the  maid 
was  offering  to  unpack  for  her,  and  pulled  out  the  key  from 
her  purse. 

**  Isn't  there  your  trunk  still  to  come  ?  "  asked  Barbara. 

"No.  You  see,  I  hadn't  much  to  bring  —  only  just  one 
or  two  things  that  I  got  in  Rome." 

Alex  wondered  if  Barbara  understood  that  until  a  few 
months  ago  she  had  been  a  nun,  living  the  life  of  a  nun. 
She  thought  of  the  apprehension  with  which  she  had  viewed 

[274] 


N.W. 

making  an  explanation  to  Barbara,  and  almost  smiled.     It 
appeared  that  no  explanation  would  be  required  of  her. 

But  presently  Barbara  said  uneasily : 

"  It  seems  extraordinary,  your  having  no  luggage  like  this, 
Alex.  I  don't  know  what  Ada  will  think,  I'm  sure.  I  told 
her  that  you'd  been  living  abroad  for  a  good  many  years  — 
I  thought  that  was  the  best  thing  to  say.  But  I  never 
thought  of  your  having  no  luggage." 

"  I  hadn't  got  anything  to  bring,  you  see.  I  must  get  some 
things,"  repeated  Alex  forlornly. 

"  You  see,"  said  her  sister  half  apologetically,  "  Ada's 
been  with  me  ever  since  I  married.  She  was  Ralph's  moth- 
er's maid,  and  perfectly  devoted  to  him.  I  couldn't  ever 
get  that  sort  of  servant  to  live  out  here,  if  it  wasn't  for 
that  —  she  waits  at  meals,  and  maids  me,  and  does  every- 
thing, except  the  actual  cooking.  I  know  she's  rather 
disagreeable  in  her  manner,  but  she's  a  perfect  treasure  to 
me." 

When  Ada  had  brought  in  the  lamps  and  filled  the  little 
room  with  cheerful  light,  drawing  the  blinds  and  curtains, 
Barbara  looked  again  hard  at  her  sister. 

"  Good  heavens,  Alex,  how  thin  you  are !  and  you  look 
as  though  you  hadn't  slept  for  a  month." 

"  Oh,  but  I  have,"  said  Alex  eagerly,  and  then  stopped. 

She  did  not  feel  able  to  explain  to  Barbara  the  insatiable 
powers  of  sleep  which  seemed  as  though  they  could  never 
be  satisfied,  after  those  ten  years  of  unvarying  obedience 
to  a  merciless  five  o'clock  bell. 

"  I  am  glad  to  hear  it,"  Barbara  replied  in  a  dissatisfied 
voice.  "  But  I  never  saw  any  one  so  changed.  Have  you 
been  ill?" 

"  Rather  run  down,"  Alex  said  hurriedly,  with  the  con- 
vent instinct  of  denying  physical  ills.  **  I  had  two  or  three 
very  troublesome  abscesses  in  my  throat,  just  before  Easter, 
and  that  left  me  rather  weak," 

"  My  dear,  how  awful !  You  never  told  me.  Did  you 
have  an  operation  ?    Are  you  scarred  ?  " 

[275] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  No.    They  broke  of   themselves  —  inside  my  throat, 
luckily." 

"  Oh  —  don't !  "  cried  Barbara,  and  shuddered. 

The  sisters  were  very  silent  during  tea.  Alex  saw  her 
sister  looking  hard  at  her  hands,  and  became  conscious  of 
contrast.  Barbara  was  thin,  but  her  hands  were  slender  and 
exceedingly  white.  She  wore,  besides  her  wedding-ring,  a 
sapphire  one,  which  Alex  thought  must  have  been  her  en- 
gagement-ring. On  her  wrist  was  a  tiny  gold  watch,  and 
a  gold  curb-chain  bracelet.  Her  own  hands,  Alex  now  saw, 
were  more  than  thin.  They  were  almost  emaciated,  with 
knuckles  that  shone  white,  and  a  sharp  prominence  at  each 
wrist-bone.  They  were  not  white,  but  rough  and  mottled, 
with  broken  skin  round  each  finger-nail.  She  wondered  if 
her  whole  person  was  in  as  striking  a  contrast  to  her  sister's. 
When  she  had  put  on  the  serge  skirt  and  white  muslin 
shirt,  the  sensation  had  overwhelmed  her,  accustomed  to  the 
heavy  religious  habit,  of  being  lightly,  almost  indecently 
clad.  But  Barbara's  dress  was  of  soft,  silky  material,  with  a 
low,  turned-down  collar,  such  as  was  just  beginning  to  come 
into  fashion.  Her  hair  was  piled  into  a  shining  knot  of 
little,  sausage-shaped  curls,  and  parted  in  front.  Though 
she  was  only  twenty-eight,  the  grey  in  Barbara's  hair  was 
plentiful,  but  her  small  face  looked  youthful  enough,  and 
had  none  of  the  hard  lines  and  shadows  that  Alex  knew  to 
lie  round  her  own  eyes  and  lips.  Her  little,  slight  figure  was 
very  erect,  and  she  wore  black  suede  shoes  with  sparkling 
buckles.  Alex  looked  down  at  her  own  clumsy,  ill-made 
boots,  which  had  already  begun  to  hurt  her  feet,  and  in- 
stinctively put  up  her  hands  to  the  cheap  black  toque,  that 
felt  heavy  on  her  head. 

"  Why  don't  you  take  off  your  hat  ?  "  Barbara  asked  her 
kindly.     "  I  am  sure  it  would  rest  you." 

She  was  too  much  used  to  obedience  not  to  comply  in- 
stantly, pushing  back  with  both  hands  the  weight  of  untidy 
hair  that  instantly  fell  over  her  eyes. 
"Oh,  Alex!    Your  hair  I" 

[276] 


N.W. 

"  It's  growing  very  fast.  I  —  I've  not  been  cutting  it 
lately.     There's  just  enough  to  put  it  up,  Barbara." 

"It's  much  darker  than  it  used  to  be,  isn't  it?" 

"  Yes,  it's  nearly  black  now.  Do  you  remember  how  light 
the  ends  used  to  be?  But  I  think  it  lost  its  colour  from 
being  always  under  the  veil,  you  know.  The  worst  of  it 
is  that  it's  not  growing  evenly,  it's  all  short  lengths." 

"  Yes.  That's  very  awkward,"  said  Barbara  dispassion- 
ately.    "  Especially  when  it's  so  straight." 

Alex  reflected  that  her  sister  was  just  as  self-contained 
as  ever. 

*'  Wouldn't  you  like  to  come  to  your  room  and  rest  till 
dinner,  Alex  ?  " 

Alex  got  up  at  once. 

"  You  ought  to  take  Plasmon,  or  something  of  that  sort, 
and  try  to  get  a  little  fatter.  There's  simply  nothing  of  you, 
Alex  —  you're  all  eyes,  with  rings  like  saucers  round 
them." 

After  Barbara  had  left  her  in  the  tiny,  pretty  bedroom, 
that  Alex  thought  looked  wonderfully  luxurious,  she  went 
straight  to  her  looking-glass. 

"  Good  heavens,  how  ugly  I  am  I "  she  said  to  herself 
involuntarily. 

Her  face  was  sallow,  with  sunken  cheeks,  and  the  Roman 
sun  had  powdered  her  skin  all  over  with  little,  pale  freckles. 
Her  eyes,  as  Barbara  had  said,  had  rings  like  saucers  round 
them,  and  looked  oddly  large  and  prominent,  from  the  slight 
puffiness  of  the  under-lids. 

Her  teeth  had,  perhaps,  suffered  most  of  all.  She  had 
had  one  or  two  taken  out,  and  the  gaps  were  visible  and 
unsightly.  They  had  never  been  very  good  teeth,  and  she 
remembered  still  all  that  she  had  suffered  at  the  hands  of 
an  unskilled  Brussels  dentist  in  Belgium.  For  the  last  few 
years  she  had  endured  intermittent  toothache,  sooner  than 
submit  to  further  torture,  and  she  saw  now  that  a  small 
black  patch  was  spreading  between  the  two  front  teeth. 
Barbara,  with  the  grey  mingled  freely  in  her  light  hair, 


CONSEQUENCES 


and  her  severe  widow's  weeds,  might  look  more  than  twenty- 
eight —  but  Alex,  at  thirty-one,  bore  the  semblance  of  a 
woman  of  forty. 

She  hid  her  face  in  her  disfigured  hands. 

Presently  she  saw  that  there  was  hot  water  in  a  little 
brass  can  on  the  washing-stand,  and  she  thankfully  made 
use  of  it. 

Ada  had  unpacked  everything,  and  Alex  saw  the  brush 
and  comb  that  she  had  hastily  purchased,  on  the  dressing- 
table.  Beside  them  was  the  packet  of  hair-pins  that  she  had 
remembered  to  get  at  the  last  moment,  and  that  was  all. 

"There  ought  to  be  something  else,  but  IVe  forgotten," 
thought  Alex. 

She  wondered  if  Barbara  would  expect  her  to  dress  for 
dinner.  The  idea  had  not  occurred  to  her.  She  had  one 
other  blouse,  a  much  better  one,  made  of  black  net,  so  trans- 
parent as  to  show  glimpses  of  her  coarse,  white-cotton  un- 
derwear, with  its  high  yoke  and  long  sleeves. 

Her  hair,  of  course,  was  impossible.  Even  if  it  had  not 
been  so  short  and  of  such  an  intractable,  limp  straightness. 
Alex  had  forgotten  how  to  do  it.  She  remembered  with 
dim  surprise  that  at  Clevedon  Square  Lady  Isabel's  maid 
had  always  done  her  hair  for  her. 

She  brushed  it  away  from  her  face,  and  made  a  small 
coil  on  the  top  of  her  head,  after  the  fashion  which  she 
remembered  best,  and  tried  to  fasten  back  the  untidy  lengths 
that  fell  over  her  ears  and  forehead. 

The  hair-pins  that  she  had  bought  were  very  long  and 
thick.     She  wished  that  they  did  not  show  so  obviously. 

"  Alex  ?  '*  said  Barbara's  cool  voice  at  her  door. 

Alex  came  out,  and  they  went  downstairs  together,  Alex 
a  few  steps  behind  her  sister,  since  the  stairs  were  not 
broad  enough  for  two  to  walk  abreast.  She  tried  awk- 
wardly not  to  step  on  the  tail  of  Barbara's  black  lace  tea- 
gown.  Ada  waited  upon  them,  and  although  the  helpings 
of  food  seemed  infinitesimal  to  Alex,  everything  tasted  de- 
licious, and  she  wondered  if  Barbara  always  had  three  courses 

[278] 


as  well  as  a  dessert  of  fruit  and  coffee,  even  when  she  was 
by  herself. 

"  You  don't  smoke,  I  suppose  ?•'*  Barbara  said.  **  No,  of 
course  not  —  how  stupid  of  me !  Let's  go  up  to  the  drawing- 
room  again." 

"  Barbara,  do  you  smoke  ?  " 

"  No.  Ralph  hated  women  to  srrtoke,  and  I  don't  like 
to  see  it  myself,  though  pretty  nearly  every  one  does  it 
now.  Violet  smokes  far  too  much.  I  wonder  Cedric 
lets  her.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  lets  her  do  anything 
she  likes." 

"  I  can't  realize  Cedric  married." 

"  I  know.  Look  here,  Alex,  he'll  want  to  see  you  —  and 
you'll  be  wanting  to  talk  over  plans,  won't  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Alex  nervously.  **  I  —  I  don't  want  to  have 
a  lot  of  fuss,  you  know.  Of  course  I  know  it's  upsetting 
for  everybody  —  my  coming  out  of  the  convent  after  every 
one  thought  I  was  settled.  But,  oh,  Barbara!  I  had  to 
leave ! " 

"  Personally,  I  can't  think  why  you  ever  went  in,"  said 
Barbara  impersonally.  "  Or  why  you  took  ten  years  to 
find  out  you  weren't  suited  to  the  life.  That  sounds  un- 
kind, and  I  don't  mean  to  be  —  you  know  I  don't.  Of 
course,  you  were  right  to  come  away.  Only  I'm  afraid 
they've  ruined  your  health  —  you're  so  dreadfully  thin,  and 
you  look  much  older  than  you've  any  right  to,  Alex.  I 
believe  you  ought  to  go  into  the  country  somewhere  and 
have  a  regular  rest-cure.  Every  one  is  doing  them  now. 
However,  we'll  see  what  Cedric  and  Violet  say." 

"  When  shall  I  see  them  ?  "  asked  Alex  nervously. 

"  Well,"  said  her  sister,  hesitating,  "  what  about  tomor- 
row? It's  better  to  get  it  over  at  once,  isn't  it?  I  thought 
I'd  ring  them  up  this  evening — I  know  they're  dining  at 
home."     She  glanced  at  the  clock. 

"  Look  here,  Alex,  why  don't  you  go  to  bed  ?  I  always 
go  early  myself  —  and  you're  simply  dead  tired.  Do ! 
Then   tomorrow   we   might   go   into   town   and   do   some 

[279] 


CONSEQUENCES 


shopping.     You'll  want  some  things  at  once,  won't  you?" 

Alex  saw  that  Barbara  meant  her  to  assent,  and  said 
"  Yes  "  in  a  dazed  way. 

She  was  very  glad  to  go  to  her  room,  and  the  bed  seemed 
extraordinarily  comfortable. 

Barbara  had  kissed  her  and  said  anxiously,  "  I  do  hope 
you'll  feel  more  like  yourself  tomorrow,  my  dear.  I  hardly 
feel  I  know  you." 

Then  she  had  rustled  away,  and  Alex  had  heard  her  go 
downstairs,  perhaps  to  telephone  to  Clevedon  Square. 

Lying  in  bed  in  the  dark,  she  thought  about  her  sister. 

It  seemed  incredible  to  Alex  that  she  could  ever  have 
bullied  and  domineered  over  Barbara.  Yet  in  their  com- 
mon childhood,  this  had  happened.  She  could  remember 
stamping  her  foot  at  Barbara,  and  compelling  her  to  follow 
her  sister's  lead  again  and  again.  And  there  was  the  time 
when  she  had  forced  a  terrified,  reluctant  Barbara  to  play 
at  tight-rope  dancing  on  the  stairs,  and  Barbara  had  obedi- 
ently clambered  on  to  the  newel-post,  and  fallen  backwards 
into  the  hall  and  hurt  her  back. 

Alex  remembered  still  the  agonized  days  and  nights  of 
despairing  remorse  which  had  followed,  and  her  own  sense 
of  being  all  but  a  murderess.  She  had  thought  then  that 
she  could  never,  never  quarrel  and  be  angry  with  Barbara 
again.  But  she  had  gone  away  to  school,  and  Barbara  had 
got  well,  and  in  the  holidays  Alex  had  been  more  overbear- 
ing than  ever  in  the  schoolroom. 

And  now  Barbara  seemed  so  infinitely  competent  —  so  re- 
mote from  the  failures  and  emotional  disasters  that  had 
wrecked  Alex.  She  made  Alex  feel  like  a  child  in  the  hands 
of  a  serious,  rather  ironical  grown-up  person,  who  did  not 
quite  know  how  to  dispose  of  it. 

Alex  herself  wondered  what  would  happen  to  her,  much 
as  a  child  might  have  wondered.  But  she  was  tired  enough 
to  sleep. 

And  the  next  morning  Barbara,  more  competent  than 
ever,  came  in  and  suggested  that  she  should  have  her  break- 

[280] 


N.W, 

fast  in  bed,  so  as  to  feel  rested  enough  for  a  morning's 
shopping  in  town. 

"  Though  I  must  say,"  said  Barbara,  in  a  dissatisfied  voice, 
"  that  you  don't  look  any  better  than  you  did  last  night.  I 
hoped  you  might  look  more  like  yourself,  after  a  night's 
rest.     I  really  don't  think  the  others  will  know  you." 

"  Am  I  going  to  see  them  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  talked  to  Violet  last  night  on  the  telephone,  and 
she  said  I  was  to  give  you  her  love,  and  she  hoped  we'd 
both  lunch  there  tomorrow." 

"  At  Clevedon  Square  ?  "  asked  Alex,  beginning  to  trem- 
ble. 

"  Yes.    You  don't  mind,  do  you  ?  " 

"  No,  I  don't  mind." 

It  was  very  strange  to  be  in  the  remembered  London 
streets  again,  stranger  still  to  be  taken  to  shops  by  Barbara 
and  authoritatively  guided  in  the  choice  of  a  coat  and  skirt, 
a  hat  that  should  conceal  as  much  as  possible  of  the  dis- 
astrous coiffure  underneath,  and  a  pair  of  black  suede 
walking-shoes,  that  felt  oddly  light  and  soft  to  her  feet. 

"  There's  no  hurry  about  the  other  things,  is  there  ?  "  said 
Barbara,  more  as  though  stating  a  fact  than  asking  a  ques- 
tion. "  Now  we'd  better  take  a  taxi  to  Clevedon  Square, 
or  we  shall  be  late." 

A  few  minutes  later,  as  the  taxi  turned  into  the  square, 
she  said,  with  what  Alex  recognized  in  surprise  as  a  kind 
of  nervousness  in  her  voice : 

"  We  thought  you'd  rather  get  it  all  over  at  once,  you 
know,  Alex.  Seeing  the  family,  I  mean.  Pam  is  staying 
there  anyway,  and  Violet  said  Archie  was  coming  to  lunch. 
There'll  be  nobody  else,  except,  perhaps,  one  of  Violet's 
brothers.     She's  always  got  one  or  other  of  them  there." 

Alex  felt  sick  with  dismay.  Then  some  remnant  of  cour- 
age came  back  to  her,  and  she  clenched  her  hands  unseen, 
and  vowed  that  she  would  go  through  with  it. 

The  cab  stopped  before  the  familiar  steps,  and  Barbara 
said,  as  to  a  stranger :     "  Here  we  are." 

[281] 


XXIV 

All  of  Them 

THE  well-remembered  hall  and  broad  staircase  swam 
before  Alex'  eyes  as  she  followed  Barbara  upstairs 
and  heard  them  announced  as : 

"  Mrs.  McAllister  —  and  Miss  Qare !  " 

In  a  dream  she  entered  the  room,  and  was  conscious  of  a 
dream-like  feeling  of  relief  at  its  totally  unfamiliar  aspect. 
All  the  furniture  was  different,  and  there  was  chintz  instead 
of  brocade,  everywhere.     She  would  not  have  known  it. 

Then  she  saw,  with  growing  bewilderment,  that  the  room 
was  full  of  people. 

"  Alex  ?  "  said  a  soft,  unknown  voice. 

Barbara  hovered  uneasily  beside  her,  and  Alex  dimly 
heard  her  speaking  half-reassuringly  and  half -apologetically. 
But  Violet  Clare  had  taken  her  hand,  and  was  guiding  her 
into  the  inner  half  of  the  room,  which  was  empty. 

"  Don't  bother  about  the  others  for  a  minute  —  Barbara, 
go  and  look  after  them,  like  a  dear  —  let's  make  acquaint- 
ance in  peace,  Alex.     Do  you  know  who  I  am  ?  " 

"Cedric's  wife?" 

"  Yes,  that's  it."  Then,  as  Barbara  left  them,  Violet 
noiselessly  stamped  her  foot.  "  You  poor  dear !  I  don't 
believe  she  ever  told  you  there  was  to  be  a  whole  crowd  of 
family  here.  That's  just  like  poor,  dear  Barbara!  I'm 
sure  she  never  had  one  atom  of  imagination  in  her  life, 
now  had  she  ?  The  idea  of  dragging  you  here  the  very  day 
after  you  got  back  from  such  a  journey.'*  The  soft,  fluent 
voice  went  on,  giving  her  time  to  recover  herself,  Alex 
hardly  hearing  what  was  said  to  her,  but  with  a  sensation 
of  adoring  gratitude  gradually  invading  her,  for  this  warm, 
unhesitating  welcome  and  unquestioning  sympathy. 

She  looked  dumbly  at  her  sister-in-law. 

[282] 


ALL    OF    THEM 


In  Violet  she  saw  the  soft,  generous  contours  and  opulent 
prettiness  of  which  she  had  caught  glimpses  in  the  South. 
The  numerous  Marchesas  who  had  come  to  the  convent 
parlour  in  Rome  had  had  just  such  brown,  liquid  eyes,  with 
dark  lashes  throwing  into  relief  an  opaque  ivory  skin,  just 
such  dazzling  teeth  and  such  ready,  dimpling  smiles,  and 
had  worn  the  same  wealth  of  falling  laces  at  decollete  throat 
and  white,  rounded  wrists.  Violet  was  in  white,  with  a  sin- 
gle string  of  wonderful  pearls  round  her  soft  neck,  and  her 
brilliant  brown  hair  was  arranged  in  elaborate  waves,  with 
occasional  little  escaping  rings  and  tendrils. 

Alex  thought  her  beautiful,  and  wondered  why  Barbara 
had  spoken  in  deprecation  of  such  sleepy,  prosperous  pretti- 
ness. 

She  noticed  that  Violet  did  not  look  at  her  with  rather 
wondering  dismay,  as  her  sister  had  done,  and  only  once 
said: 

**  You  do  look  tired,  you  poor  darling !  It's  that  hateful 
journey.  I'm  a  fearfully  bad  traveller  myself.  When  we 
were  married,  Cedric  wanted  to  go  to  the  south  of  France 
for  our  honeymoon,  but  I  told  him  nothing  would  induce 
me  to  risk  being  seasick,  and  he  had  to  take  me  to  Cornwall 
instead.  Cedric  will  be  here  in  a  minute,  and  we'll  make 
him  come  and  talk  to  you  quietly  out  here.  You  don't 
want  to  go  in  amongst  all  that  rabble,  do  you  ?  " 

"  Who  is  there  ?  "  asked  Alex  faintly. 

"  Pam  and  the  boys  —  that's  my  two  brothers,  you  know, 
whom  you  needn't  bother  about  the  very  least  bit  in  the 
world,  and  here's  Archie,"  she  added,  as  the  door  opened 
again. 

Alex  would  have  known  Archie  in  a  moment,  anywhere, 
he  was  so  like  their  mother.  Even  the  first  inflection  of 
his  voice,  as  he  came  towards  Violet,  reminded  her  of  Lady 
Isabel. 

She  had  not  seen  him  since  his  schooldays,  and  wondered 
if  he  would  have  recognized  her  without  Violet's  ready 
explanation. 

[283] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  Alex  has  come,  Archie.  That  goose  Barbara  went  and 
brought  her  here  without  explaining  that  she's  only  just 
got  back  to  England,  and  is  naturally  tired  to  death. 
I'll  leave  you  to  talk,  while  I  see  what's  happened  to 
Cedric." 

"  I  say !  '*  exclaimed  Archie,  and  stood  looking  desperately 
embarrassed.  "  How  are  you,  Alex,  old  girl  ?  We  meet 
as  strangers,  what  ?  " 

"  I  should  have  known  you  anywhere,  Archie.  You're 
so  like  Barbara  —  so  like  mother." 

"  They  say  Pam's  exactly  like  what  mother  was.  Have 
you  seen  her  ?  " 

"  No,  not  yet.     She  —  Violet  —  brought  me  in  here." 

"  I  say,  she's  a  ripper,  isn't  she  ?  Cedric  didn't  do  badly 
for  himself  —  trust  him.  Wonder  what  the  beggar'U  be 
up  to  next?  He's  done  jolly  well,  all  along  the  line  —  re- 
trieved the  family  fortunes,  what?  It  only  remains  for  me 
to  wed  an  American,  and  Pamela  to  bring  off  her  South 
African  millionaire.  She's  got  one  after  her,  did  you 
know?" 

He  spoke  with  a  certain  boyish  eagerness  that  was  rather 
attractive,  but  his  rapid  speech  and  restless  manner  made 
Alex  wonder  if  he  was  nervous. 

"  Couldn't  you  ask  Pamela  to  come  to  me  here,  so  that 
I  could  see  her  without  all  those  people  ?  " 

"  What  people  ?  It's  only  old  Jack  Temple,  and  Carol. 
Harmless  as  kittens,  what?  But  I'll  get  Pam  for  you  in 
two  twos.     You  watch." 

He  put  his  fingers  into  his  mouth  and  emitted  a  peculiar 
low  whistle  on  two  prolonged  notes.  The  signal  was  in- 
stantly answered  from  the  other  room,  but  quaveringly,  as 
though  the  whistler  were  laughing. 

Then  in  a  minute  she  appeared,  very  slim  and  tall,  in  the 
opening  between  the  two  rooms. 

"  I  like  your  cheek,  Archie !  " 
"  I  say,  Pam,  Alex  is  here." 
*^ Oh,  Alex!" 

[284] 


ALL    OF    THEM 


Pamela,  too,  looked  and  sounded  rather  embarrassed  as 
she  came  forward  and  laid  a  fresh,  glowing  cheek  against 
her  sister's. 

"Barbara  tf^lephoned  last  night  that  you'd  come,  and 
seemed  awfully  seedy,"  she  said  in  a  quick,  confused  way. 
*'  She  ought  to  have  made  you  rest  today." 

"  Oh,  no,  I'm  all  right,"  said  Alex  awkwardly.  "  How 
you've  changed,  Pamela !  I  haven't  seen  you  since  you  were 
at  school." 

Looking  at  her  sister,  she  secretly  rather  wondered  at 
what  Barbara  had  said  of  the  girl's  attractiveness. 

Pamela's  round  face  was  glowing  with  health  and  colour, 
and  she  held  herself  very  upright,  but  Alex  thought  that  her 
hair  looked  ugly,  plastered  exaggeratedly  low  on  her  fore- 
head, and  she  could  not  see  the  resemblance  to  their  mother 
of  which  Archie  had  spoken,  except  in  the  fairness  of 
colouring  which  Pamela  shared  with  Barbara  and  with 
Archie  himself. 

"  You've  changed,  too,  Alex.  You  look  so  frightfully 
thin,  and  you've  lost  all  your  colour.     Have  you  been  ill  ?  " 

"  No,  I've  not  been  ill.  Only  rather  run  down.  I  was 
ill  before  Easter  —  perhaps  that's  it." 

Alex  was  embarrassed  too,  a  horrible  feeling  of  failure 
and  inadequacy  creeping  over  her,  and  seeming  to  hamper 
her  in  every  word  and  movement.  Pamela's  cold,  rather 
wondering  scrutiny  made  her  feel  terribly  unsure  of  her- 
self. She  had  often  known  the  sensation  before  —  at  school, 
in  her  early  days  at  the  novitiate,  again  in  Rome,  and  ever 
since  her  arrival  in  England.  It  was  the  helpless  insecurity 
of  one  utterly  at  variance  with  her  surroundings. 

She  was  glad  when  Violet  came  back  and  said :  *'  Here's 
Cedric.     Go  down  to  lunch,  children  —  we'll  follow  you." 

Cedric's  greeting  to  his  sister  was  the  most  affectionate 
and  the  least  awkward  that  she  had  yet  received.  He  kissed 
her  warmly  and  said,  "  Well,  my  dear  —  I'm  glad  we'^ve 
got  you  back  in  England  again.  You  must  come  to  us, 
if  Barbara  will  spare  you." 

[285] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"Oh,  Cedric!" 

She  looked  at  hitn  for  a  moment,  emotionally  shaken. 
That  Cedric  should  have  grown  into  a  man!  She  saw  in 
a  moment  that  he  was  very  good-looking,  the  best-look- 
ing of  them  all,  with  Sir  Francis'  pleasantly  serious  ex- 
pression and  the  merest  shade  of  pomposity  in  his  man- 
ner. Only  the  blinking,  short-sighted  grey  eyes  behind 
his  spectacles  remained  of  the  solemn  little  brother  she 
had  known. 

"  Come  down  and  have  some  lunch,  dear.  What  pos- 
sessed Barbara  to  bring  you  here,  if  you  didn't  feel  up  to 
coming?  We  could  have  gone  to  Hampstead.  Violet  says 
she's  been  most  inconsiderate  to  you." 

"  Yes,  most/'  said  Violet  herself  placidly.  "  Dear  Bar- 
bara is  always  so  unimaginative.  Of  course,  it's  fearfully 
trying  for  Alex,  after  being  away  such  ages,  to  have  every 
one  thrust  upon  her  like  this." 

Alex  felt  a  throb  of  gratitude. 

"  Barbara  thought  it  had  better  all  be  got  over  at  once," 
she  said  timidly. 

"  That's  just  like  her !  Barbara  is  being  completely  ruined 
by  that  parlour-maid  of  hers  —  Ada.  I  always  think  Ada 
is  responsible  for  all  Barbara's  worst  inspirations.  She 
rules  her  with  a  rod  of  iron.  Shall  you  hate  coming  down 
to  lunch,  Alex?  Those  riotous  children  will  be  off  directly, 
they're  wild  about  the  skating-rink  at  Olympia.  Then  we 
can  talk  comfortably." 

She  put  her  hand  caressingly  through  Alex*  arm,  as  they 
went  downstairs.  Alex  felt  that  she  could  have  worshipped 
her  sister-in-law  for  her  easy,  pitying  tenderness. 

The  consciousness  of  it  helped  her  all  through  the  long 
meal,  when  the  noise  of  laughter  and  conversation  bewil- 
dered her,  after  so  many  years  of  convent  refectories  and 
silence,  and  her  solitary  dinners  in  Rome. 

Violet  had  placed  her  between  Cedric  and  Pamela,  and 
the  girl  chattered  to  her  intermittently,  without  appearing 
to  require  any  answer. 

[286] 


ALL    OF    THEM 


"Are  you  boys  ready?"  she  cried,  just  as  coffee  was 
brought  in.  "  We  can't  wait  for  coffee  —  come  on !  My 
instructor  will  be  engaged." 

'*  How  are  you  going,  Pam  ?  "  asked  Violet. 

"Underground.     It's  the  quickest." 

"  Oh,  no,  Pam.     Take  a  taxi.    Archie,  you  must !  ** 

Between  laughter  and  admonition,  they  were  dispatched 
—  Pamela,  Archie  and  the  two  Temple  boys,  all  laughing 
and  talking,  and  exchanging  allusions  and  references  unin- 
telligible to  Alex. 

The  room  seemed  much  quieter  and  darker  when  the  hall- 
door  had  finally  slammed  behind  them.  Alex  looked  round 
her. 

At  the  head  of  his  own  table,  Cedric  sat  reflective. 
Violet  lounged,  smoking  a  cigarette  and  laughing,  where 
Lady  Isabel's  place  had  always  been.  Opposite  Alex, 
Barbara,  in  her  prim  black,  was  leaning  forward  and 
speaking : 

"  What's  the  attraction  about  this  roller-skating  ?  Pa- 
mela seems  to  do  nothing  else,  when  she  isn't  dancing." 

"  Every  one's  doing  it,  my  dear.  I  want  to  take  it  up 
myself,  so  as  to  reduce  my  figure,  but  it's  such  an  impossible 
place  to  get  at.  I've  only  been  to  Olympia  for  the  Military 
Tournaments.  But  Pam  has  a  perfect  passion  for  getting 
about  by  the  underground  railway.  Alex,  isn't  Pam  a  re- 
freshing person  ?  " 

Alex  felt  uncertain  as  to  her  meaning,  and  was  startled 
at  being  addressed.  She  knew  that  she  coloured  and  looked 
confused. 

"  My  dear,"  said  Barbara  impressively,  "  your  nerves 
must  simply  have  gone  to  pieces.  Imagine  jumping  like 
that  when  you're  spoken  to!  Don't  you  think  she  ought 
to  do  a  rest-cure,  Violet?  There's  a  place  in  Belerave 
Street." 

"  No,  no,"  said  Violet's  kind,  soft  voice.  "  She's  coming 
to  us.  You  must  let  us  have  her,  Barbara,  for  a  good  long 
visit.     Mustn't  she,  Cedric  ?  " 

[287] 


CONSEQUENCES. 


"  Of  course.  You  must  have  your  old  quarters  upstairs, 
Alex." 

The  kindness  nearly  made  her  cry.  She  felt  as  might  a 
child,  expecting  to  be  scolded  and  punished,  and  unex- 
pectedly met  with  smiles  and  re-assurance. 

"  Come  up  and  see  Baby,"  said  Violet.  "  She's  such  a 
little  love,  and  I  want  her  to  know  her  new  auntie." 

"  Violet,  we  really  must  talk  business  some  time,"  said 
Barbara,  hesitating.  "  There  are  plans  to  be  settled,  you 
know  —  what  Alex  is  going  to  do  next." 

"  She's  going  to  play  with  Rosemary  next.  Don't  worry, 
dear  —  we  can  talk  plans  any  time.  There's  really  no 
hurry." 

Alex  dimly  surmised  that  the  words,  and  the  indolent, 
degagee  smile  accompanying  them,  might  be  characteristic 
of  her  new  sister-in-law. 

Violet  took  her  upstairs. 

"The  nursery  is  just  the  same  —  we  haven't  changed  a 
thing,"  she  told  her. 

Alex  gave  a  cry  of  recognition  at  the  top  of  the  stairs. 
"Oh,  the  little  gate  that  fenced  off  the  landing!  It  was 
put  up  when  Cedric  was  a  baby,  because  he  would  run  out 
and  look  through  the  balusters." 

"Was  it,  really?"  cried  Violet  delightedly.  "Cedric 
didn't  know  that  —  he  told  me  that  it  had  always  been  there. 
I  shall  love  having  you,  Alex,  you'll  be  able  to  tell  me  such 
lots  of  things  about  Cedric,  when  he  was  a  little  boy,  that 
no  one  else  knows.  You  see,  there's  so  little  difference  be- 
tween him  and  Barbara,  isn't  there  ?  " 

"  I  am  only  three  years  older  than  Barbara." 

"  Then  you're  the  same  age  —  or  a  little  older  than  I 
am.  I  am  twenty-nine  —  two  whole  years  older  than  Cedric. 
Isn't  it  dreadful?" 

She  laughed  gaily  as  she  turned  the  handle  of  the  nursery 
door. 

"  Baby,  precious,  where  are  you  ?  " 

Alex  followed  her  into  the  big,  sunny  room. 

[288] 


ALL    OF    THEM 


A  young  nurse,  in  stiff  white  pique,  sat  sewing  in  the 
window,  and  a  starched,  blue-ribboned  baby,  with  disordered, 
sunny  curls,  crawled  about  the  floor  at  her  feet. 

When  she  saw  her  mother  she  began  to  run  towards  her, 
with  outstretched  hands  and  inarticulate  coos  of  pleasure. 

"  Come  along,  then,  and  see  your  new  Auntie."  Violet 
caught  her  up  and  lifted  her  into  her  arms. 

"  Isn't  she  rather  a  love,  Alex  ?  Shall  we  look  after  her 
for  a  little  while,  while  Nurse  goes  downstairs  ?  " 

Alex  nodded.  She  felt  as  though  she  hardly  dared  speak, 
for  fear  of  frightening  the  pretty  little  laughing  child.  Be- 
sides, the  constriction  was  tightening  in  her  throat. 

Violet  sank  down  into  a  low  chair,  with  Rosemary  still 
in  her  arms. 

"  rU  stay  with  her,  Nurse,  if  you  like  to  go  downstairs 
for  half-an-hour." 

"  Thank  you,  my  lady." 

"  Sit  down  and  let's  be  comfy,  Alex.  Isn't  this  much 
nicer  than  being  downstairs?" 

Alex  looked  round  the  nursery.  As  Violet  had  said,  it 
had  not  been  altered.  On  the  mantelpiece  she  suddenly  saw 
the  big  white  clock,  supported  by  stout  Dresden-china 
cherubs,  that  had  been  there  ever  since  she  could  remember. 
It  was  ticking  in  a  sedate,  unalterable  way. 

Something  in  the  sight  of  the  clock,  utterly  familiar,  and 
yet  forgotten  altogether  during  all  her  years  away  from 
Clevedon  Square,  suddenly  caught  at  Alex.  She  made  an 
involuntary,  choking  sound,  and  to  her  own  dismay,  sobs 
suddenly  overpowered  her. 

"  My  poor  dear !  "  said  Violet  compassionately.  "  Do 
cry  —  it'll  do  you  good,  and  Baby  and  I  won't  mind,  or  ever 
tell  a  soul,  will  we,  my  Rosemary  ?  I  knew  you'd  feel  much 
better  when  you'd  had  it  out,  and  nobody  will  disturb  us 
here." 

Alex  had  sunk  on  to  the  floor,  and  was  leaning  her  head 
against  Violet's  chair. 

The  soft,  murmuring  voice  went  on  above  her: 

[289] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  I  never  heard  of  such  a  thing  in  my  life  as  Barbara's 
bringing  you  here  today  —  she  never  explained  when  she 
telephoned  that  you  hadn't  been  in  England  for  goodness 
knows  how  many  years,  let  alone  to  this  house.  And,  of 
course,  I  thought  she'd  settled  it  all  with  you,  till  I  saw 
your  face  when  she  brought  you  into  the  drawing-room,  all 
full  of  tiresome  people,  and  brothers  and  sisters  you  hadn't 
set  eyes  on  for  years.  Then  I  knew,  of  course,  and  I  could 
have  smacked  her.     You  poor  child !  '* 

"  No,  no,"  sobbed  Alex  incoherently.  "  It's  only  just  at 
first,  and  coming  back  and  finding  them  all  so  changed,  and 
not  knowing  what  I  am  going  to  do." 

"  Do !  Why,  you're  coming  here.  Cedric  and  Rosemary 
and  I  want  you,  and  Barbara  doesn't  deserve  to  keep  you 
after  the  way  she's  begun.     I'll  settle  it  all  with  her.'* 

**  Oh,  how  kind  you  are  to  me !  "  cried  Alex. 

Violet  bent  down  and  kissed  her. 

"  Kind !  Why,  aren't  I  your  sister,  and  Rosemary  your 
one  and  only  niece  ?  Look  at  her,  Alex,  and  see  if  she's  like 
any  one.     Cedric  sometimes  says  she's  like  your  father." 

"  A  little,  perhaps.     But  she's  very  like  you,  I  think." 

"  Oh,  I  never  had  those  great,  round,  grey  eyes !  Those 
are  Cedric's.  And  perhaps  yours  —  they're  the  same  colour. 
Anyway,  I  believe  she's  really  very  like  what  you  must  have 
been  as  a  baby,  Alex  I  " 

It  was  evident  that  Violet  was  paying  the  highest  compli- 
ment within  her  power. 

Alex  put  out  her  hand  timidly  to  little  Rosemary.  She 
was  not  at  all  shy,  and  seemed  accustomed  to  being  played 
with  and  admired,  as  she  sat  on  her  mother's  lap.  Alex 
thought  how  pretty  and  happy  she  and  Violet  looked  to- 
gether. She  was  emotionally  too  much  worn-out,  and  had 
for  too  many  years  felt  herself  to  be  completely  and  for 
ever  outside  the  pale  of  warm,  human  happiness,  to  feel  any 
pang  of  envy. 

Presently  Violet  reluctantly  gave  up  Rosemary  to  the 
nurse  again,  and  said: 

[290] 


ALL   OF    THEM 


"  Tm  afraid  we  ought  to  go  down.  I  don't  like  to  leave 
Barbara  any  longer.  She  never  comes  up  here  —  hardly 
ever.  Poor  Barbara!  I  sometimes  think  it's  because  she 
hasn't  any  babies  of  her  own.  Let's  come  down  and  find 
her,  Alex." 

They  found  Barbara  in  the  library,  earnestly  talking  to 
Cedric,  who  was  leaning  back,  smoking  and  looking  very 
much  bored. 

He  sprang  up  when  they  entered,  and  from  his  relieved 
manner  and  from  Barbara's  abrupt  silence,  Alex  conjectured 
that  they  had  been  discussing  her  own  return. 

She  stood  for  a  moment,  forlorn  and  awkward,  till  Vio- 
let sank  on  to  the  big  red-leather  sofa,  and  held  out  her  hand 
in  invitation  to  her. 

"  Give  me  a  cigarette,  Cedric.  What  have  you  and  Bar- 
bara been  plotting  —  like  two  conspirators  ?  " 

Cedric  laughed,  looking  at  her  with  a  sort  of  indulgent 
pride,  but  Barbara  said  with  determined  rapidity; 

"  It's  all  very  well,  Violet,  to  laugh,  but  we've  got  to  talk 
business.  After  all,  this  unexpected  step  of  Alex'  has 
made  a  lot  of  difference.  One  thought  of  her  as  absolutely 
settled  —  as  father  did,  when  he  made  his  will." 

*'  You  see,  Alex,"  Cedric  told  his  sister,  "  the  share  which 
should  have  been  yours  was  divided  by  father's  will  be- 
tween Barbara  and  Pamela,  and  there  was  no  mention  of 
you,  except  just  for  the  fifty  pounds  a  year  which  my  father 
thought  would  pay  your  actual  living  expenses  in  the  con- 
vent.    He  never  thought  of  your  coming  away  again.'* 

"How  could  he,  after  all  these  years?"  ejaculated  Bar- 
bara. 

"  I  know.  But  I  couldn't  have  stayed  on,  Cedric,  indeed 
I  couldn't.  I  know  I  ought  to  have  found  out  sooner  that 
I  wasn't  fitted  for  the  life  —  but  if  you  knew  what  it's  all 
been  like — " 

Her  voice  broke  huskily,  and  despair  overwhelmed  her 
at  the  thought  of  trying  to  explain  what  they  would  never 
understand. 

[291] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  Poor  little  thing !  "  said  Violet's  compassionate  voice. 
"Of  course,  you  couldn't  stay  on.  They've  nearly  killed 
you,  as  it  is  —  wretched  people !  " 

"  No  —  no.     They  were  kind  — " 

"The  point  is,  Alex,"  Barbara  broke  in,  "that  you've 
only  got  the  wretched  fifty  pounds  a  year.  Of  course,  I'd  be 
more  than  glad  to  let  you  have  what  would  naturally  have 
been  yours  —  but  how  on  earth  I'm  to  manage  it,  I  don't 
know.  Cedric  can  tell  you  what  a  state  poor  Ralph  left  his 
aflFairs  in  —  you'd  never  believe  how  little  I  have  to  live  on. 
Of  course,  the  money  from  father  was  a  godsend,  I  don't 
deny  it.  But  if  Cedric  thinks  it's  justice  to  give  it  back  to 
you  — " 

She  looked  terribly  anxious,  gazing  at  her  brother. 

"  No,  no,  Barbara !  "  said  Alex,  horrified.  "  I  don't  want 
the  money.  Of  course,  you  must  keep  it  —  you  and  Pa- 
mela." 

"That's  all  very  well,  my  dear  Alex,"  said  Cedric  sen- 
sibly, "  but  how  do  you  propose  to  live  ?  You  must  look 
at  it  from  a  practical  point  of  view." 

"  Then  you  think  — "  broke  from  Barbara  irrepressibly. 

"  No,  my  dear,  I  don't.  One  knows  very  well,  as  things 
are  —  as  poor  Ralph  left  things  —  it  would  be  almost  out 
of  the  question  to  expect — " 

He  looked  helplessly  at  his  wife. 

"  Of  course,  dear,"  she  said  placidly.  "  But  there's  Pa- 
mela's share." 

"  Pamela  will  marry,  of  course.  She's  sure  to  marry,  but 
until  then  —  or  at  least  until  she  comes  of  age  —  I  don't 
think  —  as  her  guardian  — " 

Cedric  broke  oflf,  looking  much  harassed. 

"If  Pam  married  a  rich  man  —  which  she  probably  will," 
said  Violet,  with  a  low  laugh. 

"  We  can't  take  distant  possibilities  into  consideration," 
Barbara  interposed  sharply.  "  We're  dealing  with  actual 
facts." 

[292] 


ALL    OF    THEM 


Alex  looked  from  one  to  the  other  with  bewilderment. 
She  hardly  understood  what  they  were  all  discussing.  From 
the  natural  home  of  her  childhood  and  girlhood,  where  she 
had  lived  as  unthinking  of  ways  and  means  as  every  other 
girl  of  her  class  and  generation,  she  had  passed  into  the 
convent  world,  where  all  was  communal,  and  the  rights  of 
the  individual  a  thing  part  shunned,  part  unknown.  She 
could  not,  at  first,  grasp  that  Cedric  and  Barbara  and  Violet, 
perhaps  Pam  and  Archie,  too,  were  all  wondering  how  she 
would  be  able  to  maintain  herself  on  fifty  pounds  a  year. 

"  Of  course,"  Barbara  was  saying,  "  Alex  could  come 
to  me  for  a  bit  —  I'd  love  to  have  you,  dear  —  but  you  saw 
for  yourself  what  a  tiny  place  mine  is  —  and  there's  only 
Ada.  I  don't  quite  know  what  she'd  say  to  having  two 
people  instead  of  one,  I  must  say  — " 

"  We  want  her,  too,"  Violet  exclaimed  caressingly.  "  Let 
us  have  her  for  a  little  while,  Barbara, —  while  you're  pre- 
paring Ada's  mind  for  the  shock."  She  broke  into  her  low, 
gurgling  laugh  again. 

Barbara  looked  infinitely  relieved. 

"  What  do  you  think,  Alex  ?  It  isn't  that  I  wouldn't  love 
to  have  you  —  but  there's  no  denying  that  ways  and  means 
do  count,  and  in  a  tiny  household  like  mine,  every  item  adds 
up." 

*'  Oh,"  said  Alex  desperately,  "  I  know  what  you  must 
feel  —  the  difficulty  of  —  of  knowing  what  to  do  with  me. 
It's  always  been  like  that,  ever  since  I  was  a  little  girl. 
I've  made  a  failure  of  everything.  Don't  you  remember  — 
Barbara,  you  must  —  old  Nurse  saying,  *  Alex  will  never 
stick  to  anything  '  ?  And  I  never  have,  I  never  shall.  I  can 
only  make  dreadful  muddles  and  failures,  and  upset  you  all. 
If  only  one  could  wreck  one's  own  life  without  interfering 
with  other  people's !  " 

There  was  a  silence,  which  Alex,  after  her  outburst,  knew 
very  well  was  not  one  of  comprehension.  Then  Cedric  said 
gently : 

"  You  mustn't  let  yourself  exaggerate,  my  dear.    We're 

[293] 


CONSEQUENCES. 


very  glad  to  have  you  with  us  again,  one  only  can't  help 
wishing  it  had  been  rather  sooner.  But  there's  no  use  in 
crying  over  spilt  milk,  and  after  all,  as  Violet  says,  there's 
no  hurry  about  anything.  Come  to  us  and  have  a  good 
long  rest  —  you  look  as  though  you  needed  it  —  and  get  a 
little  flesh  on  your  bones  again.  We  can  settle  all  the  rest 
afterwards." 

Alex  saw  Barbara  looking  at  her  with  furtive  eagerness. 
She  turned  to  her,  with  the  utter  dependence  on  another's 
judgment  that  had  become  second  nature  to  her. 

^' When  shall  I  go?" 

"  My  dear !  "  protested  Barbara.  "Of  course,  the  longer 
you  can  stay  with  me  the  better  I  shall  be  pleased.  It's  only 
that  Ada — "  She  broke  off  at  the  sound  of  Violet's  irre- 
pressible laugh. 

"  You  must  suit  yourself  absolutely,  of  course." 

"  Supposing  you  came  to  us  at  the  end  of  the  week  ?  " 
Violet  suggested.  "  Say  Saturday.  Pamela  is  going  away 
then  to  pay  one  or  two  visits  —  and  I  shall  have  you  all  to 
myself." 

Alex  looked  at  her  wonderingly. 

It  seemed  to  her  incredible  that  Violet  should  actually 
want  her,  so  engrained  was  her  sense  of  her  own  isolation 
of  spirit.  That  terrible  isolation  of  those  who  have  defi- 
nitely, and  for  long  past,  lost  all  self-confidence,  and  which 
can  never  be  realized  or  penetrated  by  those  outside. 

"  That  will  be  delightful,"  said  Violet,  seeming  to  take 
her  acceptance  for  granted. 

Barbara  got  up,  smoothing  her  skirt  gently. 

"  We  really  ought  to  be  going,  Alex.  I  said  we'd  be  in 
to  tea,  and  it  takes  such  ages  to  get  back." 

Alex  rose  submissively.  She  marvelled  at  the  assurance 
of  Barbara,  even  at  the  ease  of  her  conventionally  affec- 
tionate farewells. 

*'  Well,  good-bye,  my  dear.  When  are  you  coming  out 
to  the  wilds  to  look  me  up  ?  " 

Then,  without  giving  her  sister-in-law  time  to  reply,  she 

[294] 


ALL    OF    THEM 


added  gaily,  "  You  must  ring  me  up  and  let  me  know,  when 
you've  a  spare  moment.  You  know  I'm  always  a  fixture. 
What  a  blessing  the  telephone  is !  " 

"  Then  we'll  see  you  on  Saturday,  Alex,"  said  her 
brother.  **  Good !  Take  care  of  yourself,  my  dear."  He 
looked  after  her  with  an  expression  of  concern,  as  the  serv- 
ant held  open  the  door  for  her  and  Barbara  and  they  went 
into  the  street.  Alex  could  not  believe  that  this  kindly, 
rather  pompous  man  was  her  younger  brother. 

**  Cedric  has  grown  very  good-looking,  but  I  didn't  expect 
to  see  him  so  —  so  old^  somehow,"  she  said. 

Barbara  laughed. 

"  Time  hasn't  stood  still  with  any  of  us,  you  know.  / 
think  Violet  looks  older  than  he  does  —  she  is,  of  course. 
She'll  be  a  mountain  in  a  few  years'  time,  if  she  doesn't  take 
care." 

"  Oh,  Barbara !    I  think  she's  so  pretty  —  and  sweet." 

Barbara  shrugged  her  shoulders  very  sHghtly. 

"  She  and  I  have  never  made  particularly  violent  friends, 
though  I  like  her,  of  course.  Pamela  adores  her  —  and  I 
must  say  she's  been  good  to  Pam.  But  her  kindness  doesn't 
cost  her  anything.  She's  always  been  rich,  and  had  every- 
thing she  wanted  —  she  was  the  only  girl,  and  her  people 
adored  her,  and  now  Cedric  lets  her  do  everything  she  likes. 
She  spends  any  amount  of  money  —  look  at  her  clothes,  and 
the  way  she  has  little  Rosemary  always  dressed  in  white." 

"  Rosemary  is  lovely.  It's  so  extraordinary  to  think  of 
Cedric's  child!" 

Barbara  tightened  her  lips. 

"  She  ought  to  have  been  a  boy,  of  course.  Cedric  pre- 
tended not  to  care,  but  it  must  have  been  a  disappointment  — 
and  goodness  only  knows  if  Violet  will  ever  — " 

She  stopped,  throwing  a  -quick  glance  out  of  the  corners 
of  her  eyes  at  her  sister. 

Alex  wondered  why  she  did  not  finish  her  sentence,  and 
what  she  had  been  about  to  say. 

The  constraint  in  her  intercourse  with  Barbara  was  be- 

[295] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


coming  more  and  more  evident  to  her  perceptions.  It  was 
clear  that  her  sister  did  not  intend  to  ask  any  questions  as 
to  the  crisis  through  which  Alex  had  passed,  and  when  she 
had  once  ascertained  that  Alex  had  not  "  seen  anybody  " 
whilst  in  Rome,  she  did  not  refer  to  that  either. 

Alex  wondered  if  Barbara  would  tell  her  anything  of 
Ralph  and  their  married  life,  but  the  reserve  which  had 
always  been  characteristic  of  Barbara  since  her  nursery  days, 
had  hardened  sensibly,  and  it  was  obvious  that  she  wished 
neither  to  give  nor  to  receive  confidences. 

She  was  quite  ready,  however,  to  discuss  her  brother 
Cedric  and  his  wife,  or  the  prospects  of  Pamela  and  Archie, 
and  Alex  listened  all  the  evening  to  Barbara's  incisive  little 
clear  tones  delivering  shrewd  comments  and  judgments. 
She  again  suggested  that  Alex  should  go  to  bed  early,  say- 
ing as  she  kissed  her  good-night: 

"  It's  quite  delightful  to  have  some  one  to  talk  tO/  for  me. 
I  generally  read  or  sew  all  the  evening." 

"  It  must  be  lonely  for  you,  Barbara." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  mind  quiet,"  she  laughed,  as  though  edging 
away  from  any  hint  of  emotional  topic.  "  But,  of  course, 
it's  nice  to  have  some  one  for  a  change.  Good-night."  She 
turned  towards  the  door  of  the  bedroom.  "  Oh,  Alex ! 
there's  just  one  thing  —  I  know  you'd  rather  I  said  it.  If 
you  wouldn't  mind,  sometime  —  any  time  you  think  of  it  — 
just  letting  me  have  the  money  for  those  clothes  we  bought 
for  you  today.  The  bills  have  come  in  —  I  asked  for  them, 
as  I  don't  have  an  account.  I  knew  you'd  rather  be  re- 
minded, knowing  what  pauper  I  am.  I  only  wish  I  hadn't 
got  to  worry  you.    Good-night,  my  dear.     Sleep  well." 


[296] 


XXV 

Violet 

FOR  days  and  nights  to  come,  the  question  of  the  money 
that  Barbara  had  paid  for  her  clothes  weighed  upon 
Alex. 

She  had  no  idea  how  she  was  to  repay  her. 

The  money  that  had  been  given  her  in  Rome  for  her  jour- 
ney to  England  had  only  lasted  her  to  Charing  Cross,  and 
even  her  cab  fare  to  Hampstead  had  been  supplemented  by 
Barbara.  Alex  remembered  it  with  fresh  dismay.  Even 
when  she  had  left  Downshire  Hill  and  was  in  Clevedon 
Square  again,  the  thought  lashed  her  with  a  secret  terror, 
until  one  day  she  said  to  Cedric : 

**  What  ought  I  to  do,  Cedric,  to  get  my  fifty  pounds  a 
year  ?    Who  do  I  get  it  from  ?  " 

"Don't  Pumphrey  and  Scott  send  it  half  yearly?  I 
thought  that  was  the  arrangement.  You  gave  them  your 
change  of  address,  I  suppose." 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Alex  gently.  "  I've  never  written  to 
them,  except  once,  just  after  father  died,  to  ask  them  to 
make  the  cheques  payable  to  —  to  the  Superior." 

"  What  on  earth  made  you  do  that  ?  " 

"  They  thought  it  was  best.  You  see,  I  had  no  banking 
account,  so  the  money  was  paid  into  the  Community's  ac- 
count." 

"  I  see,"  Cedric  remarked  drily.  "  Well,  the  sooner  you 
write  and  revoke  that  arrangement,  the  better.  When  did 
they  last  send  you  a  cheque  ?    In  June  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  Alex  was  forced  to  say,  feeling  all  the 
time  that  Cedric  must  be  thinking  her  a  helpless,  unpractical 
fool. 

[297] 


CONSEQUENCES 


*'  Write  and  find  out.  And  meanwhile  —  I  say,  Alex, 
have  you  enough  to  go  on  with  ?  " 

"I  —  I  haven't  any  money,  Cedric.  In  Rome  they  gave 
me  enough  for  my  travelling  expenses,  but  nothing  is  left 
of  that." 

"  But  what  have  you  done  all  this  time  ?  I  suppose 
youVe  wanted  clothes  and  things." 

"  I  got  some  with  Barbara,  but  they  aren't  paid  for.  And 
there  are  some  other  things  I  need  —  you  see,  I  haven't  got 
anything  at  all  —  not  even  stamps,"  said  Alex  forlornly. 
"  Violet  said  something  about  taking  me  to  some  shops  with 
her,  but  I  suppose  all  her  places  are  very  expensive." 

"  They  are  —  dashed  expensive,"  Cedric  admitted,  with  a 
short  laugh.  **  But  look  here,  Alex,  will  you  let  me  advance 
you  what  you  want?  It  couldn't  be  helped,  of  course  — 
but  the  whole  arrangement  comes  rather  hard  on  you,  as 
things  are  now.  You  see,  poor  Barbara  is  really  as  badly 
off  as  she  can  be.  Ralph  was  a  most  awful  ass,  between 
ourselves,  and  muddled  away  the  little  he  had,  and  she  gets 
pretty  nearly  nothing,  except  a  widow's  pension,  which  was 
very  small,  and  the  money  father  left.  If  you'll  believe 
me,  Ralph  didn't  even  insure  his  life,  before  going  to  South 
Africa.  Of  course,  he  didn't  go  to  fight,  but  on  the  staff 
of  one  of  the  big  papers,  and  it  was  supposed  to  be  a  very 
good  thing,  and  then  what  did  he  do  but  go  and  get  dysen- 
tery before  he'd  been  there  a  fortnight !  " 

Cedric's  voice  held  all  the  pitying  scorn  of  the  successful. 

"  Poor  Barbara,"  said  Alex. 

"  That's  just  what  she  is.  Of  course,  I  think  myself  that 
Pamela  will  make  your  share  over  to  you  again  when  she 
marries.  She's  not  likely  to  make  a  rotten  bad  match  like 
Barbara  —  far  from  it.  But  until  then  she  can't  do  any- 
thing, you  know  —  at  least,  not  until  she's  of  age,  if  then." 

Cedric  stopped,  and  his  right  hand  tapped  with  his  spec- 
tacles on  his  left  hand,  in  the  little,  characteristic  trick  that 
was  so  like  Sir  Francis. 

Alex  had  already  heard  him  make  much  the  same  observa- 

[298] 


VIOLET 


tions,  but  she  realized  that  Cedric  had  retained  all  his  old 
knack  of  reiteration. 

**  I  see,"  she  said. 

*'  Well,  my  dear,  the  long  and  the  short  of  it  is,  that  you 
must  let  me  be  your  banker  for  the  time  being.  And  — 
and,  Alex,"  said  Cedric,  with  a  most  unwonted  touch  of 
embarrassment  breaking  into  his  kind,  assured  manner, 
"you  needn't  mind  taking  it.  There's  —  there's  plenty  of 
money  here  —  there  is  really  —  now-a-days." 

Alex  realized  afterwards  that  it  would  hardly  have  oc- 
curred to  her  to  mind  taking  the  twenty  pounds  which  Ce- 
dric offered  her  with  such  patent  diffidence.  She  had  never 
known  the  want  of  money,  either  in  her  Clevedon  Square 
days  or  during  her  ten  years  of  convent  ilfe.  She  did  not 
realize  its  value  in  the  eyes  of  other  people. 

The  isolation  of  her  point  of  view  on  this  and  other 
kindred  subjects  gradually  became  evident  to  her.  Her 
scale  of  relative  values  had  remained  that  which  had  been 
set  before  her  in  the  early  days  of  her  novitiate.  That 
held  by  her  present  surroundings  differed  from  it  in  almost 
every  particular,  and  more  especially  in  degree  of  concen- 
tration. All  Violet's  warm,  healthy  affection  for  Rosemary 
did  not  prevent  her  intense  preoccupation  with  her  own 
clothes  and  her  own  jewels,  or  her  innocently-assured  con- 
viction that  no  one  was  ever  in  London  during  the  month 
of  August,  and  that  to  be  so  would  constitute  a  calamity. 

All  Cedric's  pride  in  his  wife  and  love  for  her,  in  no  way 
lessened  his  manifest  satisfaction  at  his  own  success  in  life 
and  at  the  renovated  fortunes  of  the  house  of  Clare. 

Both  he  and  Violet  found  their  recreation  in  playing 
bridge,  Cedric  at  his  club  and  Violet  in  her  own  house, 
or  at  the  houses  of  what  seemed  to  Alex  an  infinite  suc- 
cession of  elaborately-gowned  friends,  with  all  of  whom  she 
seemed  to  be  on  exactly  the  same  terms  of  an  unintimate 
affection. 

Violet  at  night,  when  she  dismissed  her  maid  and  begged 
Alex  to  stay  and  talk  to  her  until  Cedric  came  upstairs, 

[299] 


CONSEQUENCES 


which  he  never  did  until  past  twelve  o'clock,  was  adorable. 

She  listened  to  Alex'  incoherent,  nervous  outpourings, 
which  Alex  herself  knew  to  be  vain  and  futile  from  the 
very  longing  which  possessed  her  to  make  herself  clear, 
and  said  no  word  of  condemnation  or  of  questioning. 

At  first  the  gentle  pressure  of  Violet's  soft  hand  on  her 
hair,  and  her  low,  sympathetic,  murmuring  voice,  soothed 
Alex  to  a  sort  of  worn-out,  tearful  gratitude  in  which  she 
would  nightly  cry  herself  to  sleep. 

It  was  only  as  she  grew  slowly  physically  stronger  that 
the  craving  for  self-expression,  which  had  tormented  her  all 
her  life,  woke  again.     Did  Violet  understand? 

She  would  reiterate  her  explanations  and  dissections  of 
her  own  past  misery,  with  a  growing  consciousness  of  mor- 
bidity and  a  positive  terror  lest  Violet  should  at  last  re- 
pulse, however  gently,  the  endless  demand  for  an  under- 
standing that  Alex  herself  perpetually  declared  to  be  im- 
possible. 

It  now  seemed  to  her  that  nothing  mattered  so  long  as 
Violet  understood,  and  by  that  understanding  restored  to 
Alex  in  some  degree  her  utterly  shattered  self-respect  and 
self-confidence.  This  dependence  grew  the  more  intense,  as 
she  became  more  aware  how  unstable  was  her  foothold  in 
the  world  of  normal  life. 

With  the  consciousness  of  an  enormous  and  grotesque 
mistake  behind  her,  mingled  all  the  convent  tradition  of  sin 
and  disgrace  attached  to  broken  vows  and  the  return  to  an 
abjured  world.     One  night  she  said  to  Violet: 

"  I  didn't  do  anything  wrong  in  entering  the  convent.  It 
was  a  mistake,  and  I'm  bearing  the  consequence  of  the  mis- 
take. But  it  seems  to  me  that  people  find  it  much  easier 
to  overlook  a  sin  than  a  mistake." 

"  Well,  I'd  rather  ask  a  divorcee  to  lunch  than  a  woman 
who  ate  peas  off  her  knife,"  Violet  admitted  candidly. 

"  That's  what  I  mean.  There's  really  no  place  for  peo- 
ple who've  made  bad  mistakes  —  anywhere." 

"  If  you  mean  yourself,  Alex,  dear,  you  know  there's  al- 

[300] 


VIOLET 


ways  a  place  for  you  here.  Just  as  long  as  you're  happy 
with  us.  Only  I'm  sometimes  afraid  that  it's  not  quite  the 
sort  of  life  —  after  all  you've  been  through,  you  poor  dear. 
I  know  people  do  come  in  and  out  a  good  deal  —  and  it  will 
be  worse  than  ever  when  Pam  is  at  home." 

"  Violet,  you're  very  good  to  me.  You're  the  only  per- 
son who  has  seemed  at  all  to  understand." 

"  My  dear,  I  do  understand.  Really,  I  think  I  do.  It's 
just  as  you  say  —  you  made  a  mistake  when  you  were  very 
young  —  much  too  young  to  be  allowed  to  take  such  a  step, 
in  my  opinion  —  and  you're  suffering  the  most  bitter  con- 
sequences. But  no  one  in  their  senses  could  blame  you, 
either  for  going  into  that  wretched  place,  or  —  still  less  — 
for  coming  out  of  it." 

"  One  is  always  blamed  by  some  one,  I  think,  for  every 
mistake.  People  would  rather  forgive  one  for  murder,  than 
for  making  a  fool  of  oneself." 

"  Forgiveness,"  said  Violet  thoughtfully.  "  It's  rather  an 
overrated  virtue,  in  my  opinion.  I  don't  think  it  ought  to 
be  very  hard  to  forgive  any  one  one  loved,  anything." 

"  Would  you  forgive  anything,  Violet  ?  " 

"  I  think  so,"  said  Violet,  looking  rather  surprised.  "  Un- 
less I  were  deliberately  deceived  by  some  one  whom  I 
trusted.  That's  different.  Of  course,  one  might  perhaps 
forgive  even  then  in  a  way  —  but  it  wouldn't  be  the  same 
thing  again,  ever." 

"  No,"  said  Alex.  "  No,  of  course  not.  Every  one  feels 
the  same  about  deceit." 

In  the  depths  of  her  own  consciousness,  Alex  was  grop- 
ing dimly  after  some  other  standard  —  some  elusive  cer- 
tainty, that  continually  evaded  her.  Were  not  those  things 
which  were  hardest  to  forgive,  the  most  in  need  of  forgive- 
ness? 

Alex,  with  the  self -distrust  engrained  in  the  unstable, 
wondered  if  that  question  were  not  born  of  the  fundamental 
weakness  in  her  own  character,  which  had  led  her  all  her 
life  to  evade  or  pervert  the  truth  in  a  passionate  fear  lest  it 

[301] 


CONSEQUENCES 


should  alienate  from  her  the  love  and  confidence  that  she 
craved  for  from  others. 

Sometimes  she  thought,  "Violet  will  find  me  out,  and 
then  she  will  stop  being  fond  of  me." 

And,  knowing  that  her  claim  on  Violet's  compassion  was 
the  strongest  link  that  she  could  forge  between  them,  she 
would  dilate  upon  the  mental  and  physical  misery  of  the 
last  two  years,  telling  herself  all  the  time  that  she  was  trad- 
ing on  her  sister's  pity. 

Her  days  in  Clevedon  Square  were  singularly  empty,  after 
Violet  had  tried  the  experiment  of  taking  Alex  about  with 
her  to  the  houses  of  one  or  two  old  friends,  and  Alex  had 
come  back  trembling  and  nearly  crying,  and  begging  never 
to  go  again. 

Her  nerves  were  still  utterly  undependable,  and  her  health 
had  suffered  no  less  than  her  appearance.  Violet  would 
have  taken  her  to  see  a  doctor,  but  Alex  dreaded  the  ques- 
tions that  he  would,  of  necessity,  put  to  her,  and  Cedric,  who 
distrusted  inherently  the  practice  of  any  science  of  which 
he  himself  knew  nothing,  declared  that  rest  and  good  food 
would  be  her  best  physicians. 

Sometimes  she  went  to  see  Barbara  at  Hampstead,  but 
seldom  willingly.  One  of  her  visits  there  was  the  occasion 
for  a  stupid,  childish  lie,  of  which  the  remembrance  made 
her  miserable. 

Alex,  amongst  other  unpractical  disabilities,  was  as  en- 
tirely devoid  as  it  is  possible  to  be  of  any  sense  of  direction. 
She  had  never  known  how  to  find  her  way  about,  and  would 
turn  as  blindly  and  instinctively  in  the  wrong  direction  as  a 
Dartmoor  pony  turns  tail  to  the  wind. 

For  ten  years  she  had  never  been  outside  the  walls  of 
the  convent  alone,  and  when  she  had  lived  in  London  as  a 
girl,  she  could  not  remember  ever  having  been  out-of-doors 
by  herself. 

Violet,  always  driven  everywhere  in  her  own  motor,  and 
accustomed  to  Pamela's  modern  resourcefulness  and  inde- 

[302] 


VIOLET 


pendence,  never  took  so  childish  an  inabihty  into  serious 
consideration. 

"  Alex,  dear,  Barbara  hoped  you'd  go  down  to  her  this 
afternoon.  Will  you  do  that,  or  come  to  Ranelagh?  The 
only  thing  is,  if  you  wouldn't  mind  going  to  Hampstead  in 
a  taxi?  I  shall  have  to  use  the  Mercedes,  and  the  little 
car  is  being  cleaned." 

"  Of  course,  I  shouldn't  mind.  I'll  go  to  Barbara,  I 
think." 

"  Just  whichever  you  like  best.  And  you'll  be  back  early, 
won't  you?  because  we're  dining  at  seven,  and  you  know 
how  ridiculous  Cedric  is  about  punctuality  and  the  servants, 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing." 

After  Violet  had  gone,  in  all  her  soft,  elaborate  laces  and 
flower-wreathed  hat,  Alex,  with  every  instinct  of  her  con- 
vent training  set  against  the  extravagance  of  a  taxi,  started 
out  on  foot,  rejoicing  that  a  sunny  July  day  should  give  her 
the  opportunity  of  enjoying  Pamela's  boasted  delight,  the 
top  of  an  omnibus. 

She  took  the  wrong  one,  discovered  her  mistake  too  late, 
and  spent  most  of  the  afternoon  in  bewilderedly  retracing 
her  own  footsteps.  Finally  she  found  a  taxi,  and  arrived 
at  Downshire  Hill  very  tired,  and  after  five  o'clock. 

Barbara  was  shocked,  as  Alex  had  known  she  would  be, 
at  the  taxi. 

"  Violet  is  so  inconsiderate.  Because  she  can  afford  taxis 
as  a  matter  of  course  herself,  she  never  thinks  that  other 
people  can't.  I  know  myself  how  every  shilling  mounts 
up.  I'll  see  you  into  an  omnibus  when  you  go,  Alex. 
It  takes  just  under  an  hour,  and  you  need  only  change 
once." 

But  that  change  took  place  at  the  junction  of  four  roads, 
all  of  them  seething  with  traffic. 

And  again  Alex  was  hopelessly  at  sea,  and  boarded  at 
last  an  omnibus  that  conveyed  her  swiftly  in  the  wrong 
direction. 

[303] 


CONSEQUENCES 


She  was  late  for  dinner,  and  when  Cedric  inquired,  with 
his  assumption  of  the  householder  whose  domestic  routine 
has  been  flung  out  of  gear,  what  had  delayed  her,  she 
stammered  and  said  that  Barbara  had  kept  her  —  she  hadn't 
let  her  start  early  enough  —  had  mistaken  the  time. 

It  was  just  such  a  lie  as  a  child  might  have  told  in  the 
fear  of  ridicule  or  blame,  and  she  told  it  badly  as  a  child 
might  have  told  it,  stammering,  with  a  frightened  widen- 
ing of  her  eyes,  so  that  even  easy-going  Violet  looked  mo- 
mentarily puzzled. 

Alex  despised  and  hated  herself. 

She  knew  vaguely  that  her  sense  of  proportion  was  dis- 
organized. She  was  a  woman  of  thirty-one,  and  her  faults, 
her  judgments  and  appreciations,  even  her  mistakes,  were 
those  of  an  ill-regulated,  unbalanced  child  of  morbid  tenden- 
cies. 

When  Pamela  came  back  to  Clevedon  Square,  Alex  was 
first  of  all  afraid  of  her,  and  then  became  jealous  of  her. 

She  was  jealous  of  Pam's  self-confidence,  of  her  enormous 
security  in  her  own  popularity  and  success,  jealous  even  of 
the  innumerable  common  interests  and  the  mutual  love  of 
enjoyment  that  bound  her  and  Violet  together. 

She  was  miserably  ashamed  of  her  feelings,  and  sought 
to  conceal  them,  none  the  less  as  she  became  aware  of  a 
certain  shrewdness  of  judgment  underlying  all  Pamela's 
breezy  vitality  and  joie  de  vivre.  She  and  her  sister  had 
nothing  in  common. 

To  Pamela,  Alex  evidently  appeared  far  removed  from 
herself  as  a  being  of  another  generation,  less  of  a  contem- 
porary than  pretty,  sought-after  Violet,  or  than  little  Rose- 
mary in  her  joyous,  healthy  play.  Pamela  could  accompany 
Violet  everywhere,  always  radiantly  enjoying  herself,  and 
receiving  endless  congratulations,  thinly  disguised  as  rail- 
lery, on  her  universal  popularity  and  the  charm  that  she 
seemed  to  radiate  at  will.  She  could  play  whole-heartedly 
with  Rosemary,  thoroughly  enjoying  a  romp  for  its  own 
sake,  and  making  even  Cedric  laugh  at  her  complete  abandon, 

[304] 


VIOLET 


"  Don't  you  like  children  ?  "  Pamela  asked  Alex,  looking 
up  from  the  nursery  floor  where  she  was  playing  with  her 
niece. 

"  Yes,  I  like  them,"  said  Alex  sombrely. 

She  had  been  reflecting  bitterly  that  she  would  have 
known  how  to  play  with  a  baby  of  her  own.  But  with  Pa- 
mela and  the  nurse  in  the  room,  she  was  afraid  of  picking 
up  Rosemary  and  making  a  fuss  with  her  as  Pam  was 
doing,  afraid  with  the  terrible  insecurity  of  the  self-con- 
scious. 

And  she  never  would  have  babies  of  her  own  now.  The 
thought  had  tormented  her  often  of  late,  watching  Violet 
with  her  child,  and  Pamela  with  her  own  radiantly-secure 
future  that  would  hold  home  and  happiness  as  her  rights. 

But  Alex  concealed  her  thoughts,  even,  as  far  as  possible, 
from  herself. 

The  married  woman  who  is  denied  children  may  lament 
her  deprivation  and  receive  compassion,  but  the  spinster 
whose  lot  forbids  her  the  hope,  must  either  conceal  her 
regrets  or  know  herself  to  be  accounted  morbid  and  indeli- 
cate. 

"  I  like  babies  while  they're  small,"  Pam  remarked. 
"  Don't  I,  you  little  horror  of  a  niece?  Other  people's,  you 
know.  I  don't  know  that  I  should  want  any  of  my  own  — 
they're  all  very  well  when  they're  tiny,  but  I  can't  bear  them 
at  the  tell-me-a-story  stage.  I  make  it  a  rule  never  to  tell 
the  children  stories  at  the  houses  where  I  stay.  I  always 
say,  the  very  first  evening,  that  I  don't  know  any.  Then 
they  know  what  to  expect.  Some  girls  let  themselves  be 
regularly  victimized,  if  they  want  to  please  the  children's 
mother,  and  get  asked  again.  I  must  say  I  do  hate  that 
sort  of  thing  myself,  and  I  don't  believe  it  really  does  any 
good.  Men  are  generally  frightfully  bored  by  the  sort  of 
girl  who's  *  perfectly  wonderful  with  children.'  They'd 
much  rather  have  one  who  can  play  tennis,  or  who's  good  at 
bridge.". 

Pamela  laughed  comfortably  at  her  own  cynicism.     "I 

[305] 


CONSEQUENCES 


must  say  I  do  think  it  pays  one  to  be  honest  in  the  long 
run.  I  always  say  exactly  what  I  feel  myself,  and  don't 
care  what  any  one  thinks  of  me." 

Alex  felt  a  dull  anger  at  her  sister's  self-complacent  state- 
ment of  what  she  knew  to  be  the  truth.  Pamela  could  af- 
ford to  be  frank,  and  her  boast  seemed  to  Alex  to  cast  an 
oblique  reflection  on  herself.  She  gazed  at  her  without 
speaking,  wretchedly  conscious  of  her  own  unreason. 

"  Look  at  Aunt  Alex,  Baby ! "  mischievously  exclaimed 
Pam  in  a  loud  whisper.  "  We're  rather  afraid  of  her  when 
she  pulls  a  long  face  like  that,  aren't  we?  Have  we  been 
naughty,  do  you  think  ?  " 

Alex  tried  to  laugh,  contorting  her  lips  stiffly.  Pamela 
jumped  up  from  the  floor. 

*'  Really  and  truly,  you  know,  Alex,"  she  gravely  told  her 
sister,  "  you  ought  to  try  and  make  things  less  au  grand 
serieux.  I  think  you'd  be  much  happier,  if  you'd  only  culti- 
vate a  sense  of  humour  —  we  all  think  so." 

Then  she  ran  out  of  the  room. 

Alex  sat  still. 

So  they  all  thought  that  she  ought  to  cultivate  a  sense 
of  humour.  She  felt  herself  to  be  ridiculous  in  their  eyes, 
with  her  eternal  air  of  tragedy,  her  sombre  despair  in  the 
midst  of  their  gay,  good-humoured  conventions,  that  ad- 
mitted of  everything  except  of  weighty,  unseasonable  gloom. 

Pamela's  spontaneous  and  unwearied  high  spirits  seemed 
to  her  to  throw  her  own  dejection  into  greater  relief;  her 
own  utter  social  incompetence. 

She  began  to  long  for  the  end  of  July,  when  the  house- 
hold in  Clevedon  Square  would  be  dispersed  for  the  re- 
mainder of  the  summer. 

Pamela  talked  incessantly  of  a  yachting  invitation  which 
she  had  received  for  August,  and  spoke  of  the  difficulty  of 
"  sandwiching  in  "  country-house  visits  for  autumn  shoot- 
ing-parties, and  Alex  knew  that  Violet's  people  were  taking 
a  house  in  Scotland,  and  wanted  her  and  Cedric  and  the 
baby  to  make  it  their  headquarters.     She  wondered,  with  a 

[306] 


VIOLET 


sense    of    impending   crisis,    what    would   happen    to   her. 

At  last  Cedric  said  to  her : 

"  Have  you  any  particular  plans  for  August,  Alex  ?  I 
want  to  get  Violet  up  north  as  soon  as  possible,  she's  done 
so  much  rushing  about  lately.  I  wish  you  could  come  with 
us,  my  dear,  but  we're  going  to  the  Temples' — that's  the 
worst  of  not  having  a  place  of  one's  own  in  the  country  — " 

"  Oh,"  said  Alex  faintly,  '*  don't  bother  about  me,  Cedric. 
I  shall  find  somewhere." 

He  looked  dissatisfied,  but  said  only: 

"  Well,  you'll  talk  it  over  with  Violet.  I  know  she's  been 
vexed  at  seeing  so  little  of  you  lately,  but  Pamela's  an  exact- 
ing young  woman,  and  chaperoning  her  is  no  joke.  I  wish 
she'd  hurry  up  and  get  settled  —  all  this  rushing  about  is 
too  much  for  Violet." 

"  I  thought  she  liked  it." 

"  So  she  does.  Anyhow,"  said  Cedric,  with  an  odd,  shy 
laugh,  "  she'd  like  anything  that  pleased  somebody  else. 
She's  made  like  that.  I've  never  known  her  anything  but 
happy  —  like  sunshine."  Then  he  flung  a  half-smoked  ciga- 
rette into  the  fireplace,  looked  awkward  at  his  own  unusual 
expression  of  feeling,  and  abruptly  asked  Alex  if  she'd  seen 
the  newspaper. 

Alex  crept  away,  wondering  why  happiness  should  be  ac- 
counted a  virtue.  She  loved  Violet  with  a  jealous,  exclu- 
sive aflfection  and  admiration,  but  she  thought  enviously 
that  she,  too,  could  have  been  like  sunshine  if  she  had  re- 
ceived all  that  Violet  received.  She,  too,  would  have  liked 
to  be  always  happy. 

She  had  her  talk  with  Violet. 

There  was  the  slightest  shade  of  wistfulness  in  Violet's 
gentleness. 

"  I  wish  we'd  made  you  happier,  but  I  really  believe  quiet 
is  what  you  want  most,  and  things  aren't  ever  very  quiet 
here  —  especially  with  Pam.  I  simply  love  having  her,  but 
I'm  not  sure  she  is  the  best  person  for  you,  just  now." 

"  I  don't  feel  I  know  her  very  well.     I  mean,  I'm  not  at 

[307] 


consequences: 


all  at  home  with  her.  She  makes  me  realize  .what  a  stranger 
I  am  to  the  younger  ones,  after  all  these  years." 

"Poor  Alex!" 

"  You're  much  more  like  my  sister  than  she  is,  and  yet 
a  year  ago  I  didn't  know  you." 

"Alex,  dear,  I'm  so  glad  if  I'm  a  comfort  to  you  —  but 
I  wish  you  wouldn't  speak  in  that  bitter  way  about  poor 
little  Pamela.     It  seems  so  unnatural." 

Violet's  whole  healthy  instinct  was  always,  Alex  had  al- 
ready discovered,  to  tend  towards  the  normal  —  the  outlook 
of  well-balanced  sanity.  She  was  instinctively  distressed 
by  abnormality  of  any  kind. 

"  I  didn't  really  mean  it,"  said  Alex  hurriedly,  with  the 
old  fatal  instinct  of  propitiation,  and  read  dissent  into  the 
silence  that  received  her  announcement. 

It  was  the  subconscious  hope  of  rectifying  herself  in 
Violet's  eyes  that  made  her  add  a  moment  later  : 

"  Couldn't  Barbara  have  me  for  a  little  while  when  you 
go  up  to  Scotland  ?     I  think  she  would  be  quite  glad." 

"Of  course  she  would.  She's  often  lonely,  isn't  she? 
And  you  think  you'd  be  happy  with  her  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  Alex  eagerly,  bent  on  showing  Violet  that 
she  had  no  unnatural  aversion  from  being  with  her  own 
sister. 

But  Violet  still  looked  rather  troubled. 

"  You  remember  that  you  found  it  rather  difficult  there, 
when  you  first  got  back.  You  said  then  that  Barbara  and 
you  had  never  understood  one  another  even  as  children." 

"  Oh,  but  that  will  all  be  different  now,"  said  Alex,  con- 
fused, and  knowing  that  her  manner  was  giving  an  impres- 
sion of  shiftiness  from  her  very  consciousness  that  she  was 
contradicting  herself. 

As  Pamela's  claims  and  her  own  ceaseless  fear  of  inade- 
quacy made  her  increasingly  unsure  of  Violet,  Alex  became 
less  and  less  at  ease  with  her. 

The  old  familiar  fear  of  being  disbelieved  gave  uncer- 
tainty to  every  word  she  uttered  and  she  could  not  afford  to 

[308] 


VIOLET 


laugh  at  Pam's  merciless  amusement  in  pointing  out  the 
number  of  times  that  she  contradicted  herself.  Violet  al- 
ways hushed  Pamela,  but  she  looked  puzzled  and  rather 
distressed,  and  her  manner  towards  Alex  was  more  com- 
passionate than  ever. 

Alex,  with  the  impetuous  unwisdom  of  the  weak,  one 
day  forced  an  issue. 

"  Violet,  do  you  trust  me  ?  " 

"  My  dear  child,  what  do  you  mean?  Why  shouldn't  I 
trust  you  ?    Are  you  thinking  of  stealing  my  pearls  ?  " 

But  Alex  could  not  smile. 

"  Do  you  believe  everything  that  I  say?" 

Violet  looked  at  her  and  asked  very  gently : 

"  What  makes  you  ask,  Alex  ?  You're  not  unhappy  about 
the  nonsense  that  child  Pamela  sometimes  talks,  are  you  ?  " 

"  No,  not  exactly.  It's  —  it's  just  everything.  .  .  ." 
Alex  looked  miserable,  tongue-tied. 

"  Oh,  Alex,  do  try  and  take  things  more  lightly.  You 
make  yourself  so  unhappy,  poor  child,  with  all  this  self- 
torment.     Can't  you  take  things  as  they  come,  more  ?  " 

The  counsel  found  unavailing  echo  in  Alex'  own  mind. 
She  knew  that  her  mental  outlook  was  wrenched  out  of  all 
gear,  and  she  knew  also,  in  some  dim,  undefined  way,  that  a 
worn-out  physical  frame  was  responsible  for  much  of  her 
self-inflicted  torment  of  mind.  Sometimes  she  wondered 
whether  the  impending  solution  to  her  whole  destiny,  still 
hanging  over  -her,  would  find  her  on  the  far  side  of  the  abyss 
which  separates  the  normal  from  the  insane. 

The  days  slipped  by,  and  then,  just  before  the  general 
dispersal,  Pamela  suddenly  announced  her  engagement  to 
Lord  Richard  Gunvale,  the  youngest  and  by  far  the  wealth- 
iest of  her  many  suitors. 

"  Oh,  Pam,  Pam !  "  cried  Violet,  laughing,  "  why  couldn't 
you  wait  till  after  we'd  left  town?  " 

But  every  one  was  delighted,  and  congratulations  and  let- 
ters and  presents  and  telegrams  poured  in. 

Pamela  declared  that  she  would  not  be  married  until  the 

[309] 


CONSEQUENCES 


winter,  and  refused  to  break  her  yachting  engagement.  She 
was  more  popular  than  ever  now,  and  every  one  laughed 
at  her  delightful  originality  and  gazed  at  the  magnificence 
of  the  emerald  and  diamond  ring  on  her  left  hand. 

And  Alex  began  to  hope  faintly  that  perhaps  when  Pa- 
mela was  married,  things  might  be  different  at  Clevedon 
Square. 

Then  one  night,  just  before  she  was  to  go  to  Hampstead, 
she  overheard  a  conversation  between  Cedric  and  his  wife. 

She  was  on  the  stairs  in  the  dark,  and  they  were  in  the 
lighted  hall  below,  and  from  the  first  instant  that  Cedric 
spoke,  Alex  lost  all  sense  of  what  she  was  doing,  and  lis- 
tened. 

".  .  .  they're  wearing  you  out,  Pam  and  Alex  between 
them.    I  won't  have  any  more  of  it,  I  tell  you." 

"  No,  no,  my  dear  old  goose.  Of  course  they're  not." 
Violet's  soft  laughter  came  up  to  Alex'  ears  with  a  muffled 
sound,  as  though  her  head  were  resting  against  Cedric's 
shoulder.  "  Anyhow,  it  isn't  Pam  —  I'm  delighted  about 
her,  of  course.     Only  Alex  —  I  wish  she  was  happier !  " 

"  And  why  isn't  she  ?  You're  a  perfect  angel  to  her," 
said  Cedric  resentfully. 

"  I'm  so  sorry  for  her  —  only  it's  difficult  sometimes  —  a 
feeling  Hke  shifting  sands.  One  doesn't  know  what  to  be  at 
with  her.  If  only  she  said  what  she  wanted  or  didn't  want, 
right  out,  but  it's  that  awful  anxiety  to  please  —  poor  dar- 
ling." 

"  She  always  was  like  that,  from  our  nursery  days.  You 
never  could  get  the  rights  of  a  matter  out  of  her  —  plain 
black  or  white  —  she'd  say  one  thing  one  day  and  another 
the  next,  always." 

**  That's  what  I  find  so  difficult !  It's  impossible  to  do 
anything  for  a  person  like  that  —  it's  the  one  thing  I  can't 
understand." 

"  Pack  her  off  to  Hampstead  tomorrow,"  Cedric  ob- 
served grufflly.     ''  I  will  not  have  you  bothered." 

"  Oh,  Cedric !    I'm  not  bothered  —  how  can  you  ?    She'll 

[310] 


VIOLET 


be  going  next  week,  anyway,  poor  dear,  and  it  may  be  easier 
for  her  to  be  herself  with  Barbara,  who's  her  own  sister, 
after  all.  But  I  don't  know  what  about  afterwards  —  when 
we  get  back." 

"  You'll  have  quite  enough  to  think  about  with  Pam's  wed- 
ding, without  Alex  on  your  hands  as  well.  Violet,"  said 
Cedric,  with  a  note  in  his  voice  that  Alex  had  never  heard 
there,  "  when  I  think  of  the  way  youVe  behaved  to  all  my 
wretched  family — " 

Alex  did  not  hear  Violet's  answer,  which  was  very  softly 
spoken. 

She  had  turned  and  gone  away  upstairs  in  the  dark. 


[311] 


XXVI 

August 

WAS  it,  after  all,  only  for  Cedric's  sake  that  Violet 
had  kept  her  at  Clevedon  Square  —  had  shown 
her  such  heavenly  kindness  and  gentleness? 

Alex  asked  herself  the  question  all  night  long  in  utter 
misery  of  spirit.  She  had  craved  all  her  life  for  an  exclu- 
sive, personal  affection,  and  had  been  mocked  with  counter- 
feit again  and  again.  She  knew  now  that  it  was  only  in 
despair  at  such  cheating  of  fate  that  she  had  flung  herself 
rashly  to  the  opposite  end  of  the  scale,  and  sought  to  em- 
brace a  life  that  purported  detachment  from  all  earthly  ties. 

" /  will  have  all  or  none"  had  been  the  inward  cry  of  her 
bruised  spirit. 

Fate  had  taken  her  at  her  word,  this  time,  and  she  had 
not  been  strong  enough  to  endure,  and  had  fled,  cowering, 
from  the  consequence  of  her  own  act. 

Tortured,  distraught,  with  self-confidence  shattered  to  the 
earth,  she  had  turned  once  again,  with  hands  that  trembled 
as  they  pleaded,  to  ask  comfort  of  human  love  and  com- 
panionship. Violet  had  not  condemned  her,  had  pitied  her, 
and  had  shown  her  untiring  sympathy  and  affection  —  for 
love  of  Cedric. 

Alex  rose  haggard,  in  the  morning.  She  wanted  to  be 
alone.  The  thought  of  going  to  Barbara  in  Hampstead 
had  become  unendurable  to  her. 

It  was  with  a  curious  sense  of  inevitability  that  she  found 
a  letter  from  Barbara  asking  her  if  she  could  put  off  her 
visit  for  the  present.  The  admirable  Ada  had  developed 
measles. 

"  Good  Lord,  can't  they  send  her  to  a  hospital  ? "  ex- 
claimed Cedric,  with  the  irritability  of  a  practical  man  who 

[312] 


AUGUST 


finds  his  well-ordered  and  practical  plans  thrown  out  of 
gear  by  some  eminently  unpractical  intervention  on  the  part 
of  Providence. 

"  Fm  sure  Barbara  never  would,"  said  Violet,  laughing. 
"  Poor  dear,  I  hope  she  won't  catch  it  herself.  It'll  mean 
having  the  house  disinfected,  too  —  what  a  nuisance  for  her. 
But,  Alex,  dear,  you  must  come  with  us !  I'll  send  a  wire 
today  —  mother  will  be  perfectly  delighted." 
*'  Couldn't  I  stay  here  ?  "  asked  Alex. 
Cedric  explained  that  the  house  would  be  partially  shut 
up,  with  only  two  of  the  servants  left. 

"  I  shouldn't  give  any  trouble  —  I'd  so  much  rather,"  Alex 
urged,  unusually  persistent. 

"  My  dear,  it's  out  of  the  question.  Not  a  soul  in  Lon- 
don —  you  forget  it's  August." 

"  But,  Cedric,"  said  Violet,  "  I  don't  see  why  she  shouldn't 
do  as  she  likes.  It  will  be  only  till  Barbara  can  have  her, 
after  all  —  I  suppose  Ada  will  be  moved  as  soon  as  she's 
better,  and  the  disinfecting  can't  take  so  very  long.  If  she 
wants  to  stay  here  ?  " 

"  I  do,"  said  Alex,  with  sudden  boldness. 
"  You  don't  think  you'll  be  lonely?  " 
"  No,  no." 

"After  all,"  Violet  considered,  "it  will  be  very  good 
for  Ellen  and  the  tweeny  to  have  somebody  to  wait  upon. 
I  never  do  like  leaving  them  here  on  enormous  board  wages, 
to  do  nothing  at  all  —  though  Cedric  will  think  it's  the 
proper  thing  to  do,  because  his  father  did  it." 

She  laughed,  and  Cedric  said,  with  an  air  of  concession: 

"Well,  just  till  Barbara  can  take  you  in,  perhaps  —  if 

you  think  London  won't  be  unbearable.     But  mind  you, 

Alex,  the  minute  you  get  tired  of  it,  or  feel  the  heat  too 

much  for  you,  you're  to  make  other  arrangements." 

Alex  wondered  dully  what  other  arrangements  Cedric 
supposed  that  she  could  make.  She  had  no  money,  and 
had  never  even  roused  herself  to  write  the  letter  he  had 
recommended,  asking  to  have  her  half-yearly  allowance  sent 

[313] 


CONSEQUENCES 


to  her  own  address  and  not  to  that  of  the  Superior  of  the 
convent. 

But  on  the  day  before  Cedric  and  Violet,  with  Violet's 
maid,  and  Rosemary,  and  her  nurse,  and  her  pram,  all  took 
their  departure,  Cedric  called  Alex  into  the  study. 

She  went  to  him  feeling  oddly  as  though  she  was  the 
little  girl  again,  who  had,  on  rare  occasions,  been  sent  for 
by  Sir  Francis,  and  had  found  him  standing  just  so,  his 
back  to  the  fireplace,  spectacles  in  hand,  speaking  in  just 
the  same  measured,  rather  regretful  tones  of  kindliness. 

"  Alex,  Fve  made  out  two  cheques  —  one  to  cover  the 
servants'  .board  wages,  which  I  thought  you  would  be  good 
enough  to  give  them  at  the  end  of  the  month,  and  one  for 
your  own  living  expenses.  You'd  better  cash  that  at  once, 
in  case  you  want  any  ready  money.  Have  you  anywhere 
to  keep  it  under  lock  and  key  ?  " 

Cedric,  no  more  than  Sir  Francis,  trusted  to  a  woman's 
discretion  in  matters  of  money. 

"  Yes,  there's  the  drawer  of  the  writing-table  in  my  bed- 
room." 

"  That  will  be  all  right,  then.  The  servants  are  per- 
fectly trustworthy,  no  doubt,  but  loose  cash  should  never  be 
left  about  in  any  case  —  if  you  want  more,  write  to  me. 
And,  Alex,  I've  seen  old  Pumphrey  —  father's  man  of 
business.  He  will  see  that  you  get  your  fifty  pounds. 
H-ere  is  the  first  instalment. 

Cedric  gravely  handed  her  a  third  cheque. 

"  Have  you  a  banking  account  ?  " 

"  I  don't  think  so." 

"  Then  I'll  arrange  to  open  one  for  you  at  my  bank  to- 
day. You'd  better  deposit  this  at  once,  hadn't  you  —  unless 
you  want  anything  ?  " 

"  No,"  faltered  Alex,  not  altogether  understanding. 

"  You  will  have  no  expenses  while  you're  here,  of  course," 
said  Cedric,  rather  embarrassed.  Alex  looked  bewildered. 
It  had  never  occurred  to  her  to  suggest  paying  for  her  own 
keep  while  she  remained  alone  at  Clevedon  Square.     She 

[314] 


AUGUST 


gave  back  to  her  brother  the  cheque  for  twenty-five  pounds, 
and  received  his  assurance  that  it  would  be  banked  in  her 
name  that  afternoon. 

"  They  will  send  you  a  cheque-book,  and  you  can  draw 
out  any  small  sum  you  may  need  later  on." 

"  I  don't  think  I  shall  need  any,"  said  Alex,  looking  at 
the  other  two  cheques  he  had  given  her,  made  payable  to 
herself,  and  thinking  what  a  lot  of  money  they  represented. 
"You  will  have  a  thorough  rest  and  change  with  Bar- 
bara," Cedric  said,  still  looking  at  her  rather  uneasily. 
"  Then,  when  we  meet  again  in  October,  it  will  be  time 
enough  — " 

He  did  not  say  what  for,  and  Alex  remembered  the  con- 
versation that  she  had  overheard  on  the  stair.  With  a  feel- 
ing of  cunning,  she  was  conscious  of  her  own  determination 
to  take  the  initiative  out  of  his  hands,  without  his  knowl- 
edge. 

They  did  not  want  her,  and  they  would  want  her  less  than 
ever,  with  all  the  approaching  business  connected  with  Pa- 
mela's wedding  in  December.  Barbara  did  not  want  her, 
self-absorbed,  and  unwearingly  considering  how  to  cut  down 
more  and  yet  more  expenses. 

Alex  had  made  up  her  mind  to  go  and  live  alone.  She 
would  prove  to  them  that  she  could  do  it,  though  they 
thought  fifty  pounds  a  year  was  so  little  money.  She 
thought  vaguely  that  perhaps  she  could  earn  something. 

But  she  gave  no  hint  of  her  plans  to  any  one,  knowing 
that  Violet  would  be  remonstrant  and  Cedric  derisive. 

Obsessed  by  this  new  idea,  she  said  good-bye  to  them  with 
a  sort  of  furtive  eagerness,  and  found  herself  alone  in  the 
house  in  Clevedon  Square. 

At  first  the  quiet  and  the  solitude  were  pleasant  to  her. 
She  crept  round  the  big,  empty  house  like  a  spirit,  feeling  as 
though  it  presented  a  more  familiar  aspect  with  its  shrouded 
furniture  and  carefully  shaded  windows,  and  the  absence  of 
most  of  Violet's  expensive  silver  and  china  ornaments. 
The  library,  which  was  always  kept  open  for  her,  was  one 

[315] 


CONSEQUENCES 


of  the  least  changed  rooms  in  the  house,  and  she  spent  hours 
crouched  upon  the  sofa  there,  only  rousing  herself  to  go  to 
the  solitary  meals  which  were  punctiliously  laid  out  for  her 
in  the  big  dining-room. 

Presently  she  began  to  wonder  if  the  elderly  upper-house- 
maid, Ellen,  left  in  charge,  resented  her  being  there.  She 
supposed  that  the  presence  of  some  one  who  never  went  out, 
for  whom  meals  had  to  be  provided,  who  must  be  called  in 
the  morning  and  supplied  with  hot  water  four  times  a  day, 
would  interfere  with  the  liberty  of  Ellen  and  the  unseen 
tweeny  who,  no  doubt,  cooked  for  them.  They  would  be 
glad  when  she  went  away.  Never  mind,  she  would  go  very 
soon.  Alex  felt  that  she  was  only  waiting  for  something  to 
happen  which  should  give  her  the  necessary  impetus  to 
carry  out  her  vague  design  of  finding  a  new,  independent 
foothold  for  herself. 

A  drowsy  week  of  very  hot  weather  slipped  by,  and  then 
one  morning  Alex  received  three  letters. 

Cedric's,  short  but  affectionate,  told  her  that  Violet  had 
reached  Scotland  tired  out,  and  had  been  ordered  by  the  doc- 
tor to  undergo  something  as  nearly  approaching  a  rest-cure 
as  possible.  She  was  to  stay  in  bed  all  the  morning,  sit  in 
the  garden  when  it  was  fine,  and  do  nothing.  She  was  to 
write  no  letters,  but  she  sent  Alex  her  love  and  looked  for- 
ward to  hearing  from  her.  Cedric  added  briefly  that  Alex 
was  not  to  be  at  all  anxious.  Violet  only  needed  quiet  and 
country  air,  and  no  worries.     She  was  looking  better  already. 

Alex  put  the  letter  down  reflectively.  Evidently  Cedric 
did  not  want  his  wife  disturbed  by  depressing  correspond- 
ence, and  she  did  not  mean  to  write  to  Violet  of  her  new 
resolution.  She  even  thought  that  perhaps  she  would  con- 
tinue to  let  Violet  believe  her  at  Clevedon  Square  or  with 
Barbara. 

Her  second  letter  was  from  Barbara.  It  was  quite  a  long 
letter,  and  said  that  Barbara  had  decided  to  leave  Ada  at  a 
convalescent  home  and  take  her  own  much-needed  summer 
holiday  abroad.     Would  Alex  join  her  in  a  week's  time? 

[316] 


AUGUST 


"  What  do  you  think  of  some  Httle,  cheap  seaside  hole  in 
Brittany,  which  we  could  do  for  very  Httle  ?  I  wish  I  could 
have  you  as  my  guest,  dear,  but  you'll  understand  that  all 
the  disinfecting  of  the  house  has  cost  money,  besides  forcing 
me  to  go  away,  which  I  hadn't  meant  to  do.  However,  I'm 
sure  I  need  the  change,  and  I  dare  say  it  won't  do  you  any 
harm  either.  We  ought  to  do  the  whole  thing  for  about 
fifteen  pounds  each,  I  think,  which,  I  suppose,  will  be  all 
right  for  you?  Do  ring  me  up  tonight,  and  let's  exchange 
views.  I  shan't  be  free  of  a  suspicion  as  to  these  wretched 
measles  till  next  week,  but  I  don't  think  really  there's  much 
danger,  as  I've  had  them  already  and  am  not  in  the  least 
nervous.  Ring  up  between  seven  and  eight  tonight.  I 
suppose  Violet,  as  usual,  has  kept  on  the  telephone,  even 
though  they're  away  themselves  ?  " 

Alex  knew  that  she  did  not  want  to  go  aJbroad  with  Bar- 
bara. She  nervously  picked  up  her  third  letter,  which  bore 
a  foreign  post-mark.  When  she  had  read  the  sheet  of  thin 
paper  which  was  all  the  envelope  contained,  she  sat  for  a 
long  while  staring  at  it. 

The  nuns  in  Rome,  with  whom  she  had  spent  the  few 
weeks  previous  to  her  return  to  England,  had  sent  in  their 
account  for  her  board  and  lodging,  for  the  few  clothes  she 
had  purchased,  and  for  the  advance  made  her  for  her  trav- 
elling expenses.     The  sum  total,  in  francs,  looked  enormous. 

At  last  Alex,  trembling,  managed  to  arrive  at  the  approxi- 
mate amount  in  English  money. 

Twenty  pounds. 

It  seemed  to  her  exorbitant,  and  she  realized,  with  fresh 
dismay,  that  she  had  never  taken  such  a  debt  into  considera- 
tion at  all.     How  could  she  tell  Cedric  ? 

She  thought  how  angry  he  would  be  at  her  strange  omis- 
sion in  never  mentioning  it  to  him  before,  and  how  impos- 
sible it  would  be  to  explain  to  him  that  she  had,  as  usual, 
left  all  practical  issues  out  of  account.  Suddenly  Alex  re- 
membered with  enormous  relief  that  twenty-five  pounds  lay 
to  her  credit  at  the  bank.     She  had  received  her  new  cheque- 

[317] 


CONSEQUENCES 


book  only  two  days  ago.  She  would  go  to  the  bank  today 
and  make  them  show  her  how  she  could  send  the  money  to 
Italy. 

Then  Cedric  and  Violet  need  never  know.  They  need 
never  blame  her. 

Full  of  relief,  Alex  took  the  cheque-book  that  morning 
to  the  bank.  She  did  not  like  having  to  display  her  igno- 
rance, but  she  showed  the  bill  to  the  clerk,  who  was  civil 
and  helpful,  and  showed  her  how  very  simple  a  matter  it  was 
to  draw  a  cheque  for  twenty  pounds  odd.  When  it  was 
done,  and  safely  posted,  Alex  trembled  with  thankfulness. 
It  seemed  to  her  that  it  would  have  been  a  terrible  thing  for 
Cedric  to  know  of  the  expenses  she  had  so  ignorantly  in- 
curred, and  of  her  incredible  simplicity  in  never  having 
realized  them  before,  and  she  was  glad  that  he  need  never 
know  how  almost  the  whole  of  her  half-year's  allowance  of 
money  had  vanished  so  soon  after  she  had  received  it. 

She  telephoned  to  Barbara  that  night,  and  said  that  she 
could  not  go  abroad  with  her. 

"  Oh,  very  well,  my  dear,  if  you  think  it  wiser  not.  Of 
course,  if  you  don't  mind  London  at  this  time  of  year,  it's  a 
tremendous  economy  to  stay  where  you  are.  .  .  .  Are  the 
servants  looking  after  you  properly  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes." 

"  Well,  do  just  as  you  like,  of  course.  I  think  I  shall  get 
hold  of  some  friend  to  join  forces  with  me,  if  you're  sure 
you  won't  come.  .  .  ." 

"  Quite  sure,  Barbara,"  said  Alex  tremulously.  She  felt 
less  afraid  of  her  sister  at  the  other  end  of  the  telephone. 

She  went  and  saw  Barbara  off  the  following  week,  and 
Barbara  said  carelessly: 

"  Good-bye,  Alex.  You  look  a  shade  better,  I  think.  On 
the  whole  you're  wiser  to  stay  where  you  are  —  I'm  sure  you 
need  quiet,  and  when  once  the  rush  begins  for  Pam's  wed- 
ding, you'll  never  get  a  minute'-s  peace.  Are  you  staying  on 
when  they  get  back  ?  " 

**  I'm  not  sure,"  faltered  Alex. 

[318] 


AUGUST 


"  You  may  be  wise.  Well,  come  down  to  my  part  of  the 
world  if  you  want  economy: — and  to  feel  as  though  you 
were  out  of  London.     Good-bye,  dear." 

Alex  was  surprised,  and  rather  consoled,  to  hear  Barbara 
alluding  so  lightly  to  the  possibility  of  her  seeking  fresh 
quarters  for  herself.  Perhaps,  after  all,  they  all  thought  it 
would  be  the  best  thing  for  her  to  do.  Perhaps  there  was 
no  need  to  feel  guilty  and  as  though  her  intentions  must  be 
concealed. 

But  Alex,  dreading  blame  or  disapproval,  or  even  assur- 
ances that  the  scheme  was  unpractical  and  foolish,  contin- 
ued to  conceal  it. 

She  wrote  and  told  Violet  that  she  had  decided  that  it 
would  be  too  expensive  to  go  abroad  with  Barbara.  Might 
she  stay  on  in  Clevedon  Square  for  a  little  while? 

But  she  had  secretly  made  up  her  mind  to  go  and  look 
for  rooms  or  a  boarding-house  in  Hampstead,  as  Barbara 
had  suggested.     As  usual,  it  was  only  by  chance  that  Alex 
realized  the  practical  difficulties  blocking  her  way. 
She  had  now  only  five  pounds. 

On  the  following  Saturday  afternoon  she  found  her  way 
out  by  omnibus  to  Hampstead.  She  alighted  before  the 
terminus  was  reached,  from  a  nervous  dread  of  being  taken 
on  too  far,  although  the  streets  in  which  she  found  herself 
were  not  prepossessing. 

For  the  first  time  Alex  reflected  that  she  had  no  definite 
idea  as  to  where  she  wanted  to  go  in  her  search  for  lodgings. 
She  walked  timidly  along  the  road,  which  appeared  to  be 
interminably  long  and  full  of  second-hand  furniture  shops. 
Bamboo  tables,  and  armchairs  with  defective  castors,  were 
put  out  on  the  pavement  in  many  instances,  and  there  was 
often  a  small  crowd  in  front  of  the  window  gazing  at  the 
cheaply-framed  coloured  supplements  hung  up  within.  The 
pavements  and  the  road,  even  the  tram-lines,  swarmed  with 
untidy,  clamouring  children. 

Alex  supposed  that  she  must  be  in  the  region  vaguely 
known  to  her  as  the  slums. 

[319] 


CONSEQUENCES 


Surely  she  could  not  live  here  ? 

Then  the  recollection  of  her  solitary  five  pounds  came  to 
her  with  a  pang  of  alarm. 

Of  course,  she  must  live  wherever  she  could  do  so  most 
cheaply.     She  had  no  idea  of  what  it  would  cost. 

It  was  very  hot,  and  the  pavement  began  to  burn  her  feet. 
She  did  not  dare  to  leave  the  main  road,  fearing  that  she 
should  never  find  her  way  to  the  'bus  route  again,  if  once  she 
left  it,  but  she  peeped  down  one  or  two  side-streets.  They 
seemed  quieter  than  Maiden  Road,  but  the  unpretentious 
little  grey  houses  did  not  look  as  though  lodgers  were  ex- 
pected in  any  of  them.  Alex  wondered  desperately  how  she 
was  to  find  out. 

Presently  she  saw  a  policeman  on  the  fu^-ther  side  of  the 
street. 

She  went  up  to  him  and  asked : 

"  Can  you  tell  me  of  anywhere  near  here  where  they  let 
rooms  —  somewhere  cheap  ?  " 

The  man  looked  down  at  her  white,  exhausted  face,  and 
at  the  well-cut  coat  and  skirt  chosen  by  Barbara,  which  yet 
hung  loosely  and  badly  on  her  stooping,  shrunken  figure. 

"  Somebody's  poor  relation,"  was  his  unspoken  comment. 

"Is  it  for  yourself,  Miss?  You'd  hardly  care  to  be  in 
this  neighbourhood,  would  you  ?  " 

"  I  want  to  be  somwhere  near  Hampstead  —  and  some- 
where very,  very  cheap,"  Alex  faltered,  thinking  of  her  five 
pounds,  which  lay  at  that  moment  in  the  purse  she  was 
clasping. 

"  Well,  you'll  find  as  cheap  here  as  anywhere,  if  you  don't 
mind  the  noise." 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Alex  —  who  had  never  slept  within  the 
sound  of  traffic  —  surprised. 

"  Then  if  I  was  you.  Miss,  I'd  try  No.  252  Maiden 
Road  —  just  beyond  the  Gipsy  Queen,  that  is,  or  else  two 
doors  further  up.  I  saw  cards  up  in  both  windows  with 
*  apartments  *  inside  the  last  week." 

[320] 


AUGUST 


"  Thank  you/'  said  Alex. 

She  wished  that  Maiden  Road  had  looked  more  like  Down- 
shire  Hill,  which  had  trees  and  little  tiny  gardens  in  front  of 
the  houses,  which  almost  all  resembled  country  cottages. 
But  no  doubt  houses  in  Downshire  Hill  did  not  let  rooms,  or 
if  so  they  must  be  too  expensive.  Besides,  Alex  felt  almost 
sure  that  Barbara  would  not  want  her  as  a  very  near  neigh- 
bour. 

She  was  very  tired  when  she  reached  No.  252,  and  almost 
felt  that  she  would  take  the  rooms,  whatever  they  were  like, 
to  save  herself  further  search.  After  all,  she  could  change 
later  on,  if  she  did  not  like  them. 

Like  all  weak  people,  Alex  felt  the  urgent  necessity  of 
acting  as  quickly  as  possible  on  her  own  impulses. 

She  looked  distastefully  at  the  dingy  house,  with  its  paint 
cracking  into  hard  flakes,  and  raised  the  knocker  slowly.  A 
jagged  end  of  protruding  wire  at  the  side  of  the  door  pro- 
claimed that  the  bell  was  broken. 

Her  timid  knock  was  answered  by  a  slatternly-looking 
young  woman  wearing  an  apron,  whom  Alex  took  to  be  the 
servant. 

"  Can  I  see  the  —  the  landlady?  " 

"  Is  it  about  a  room  ?  I'm  Mrs.  'Oxton."  She  spoke  in 
the  harshest  possible  Cockney,  but  quite  pleasantly. 

"  Oh,"  said  Alex,  still  uncertain.  "  Yes,  I  want  rooms, 
please." 

The  woman  looked  her  swiftly  up  and  down.  "  Only  one 
bed-sittin'-room  vacant.  Miss,  and  that's  at  the  top  of  the 
'ouse.    Would  you  care  to  see  that  ?  " 

"  Yes,  please." 

Mrs.  Hoxton  slammed  the  door  and  preceded  Alex  up  a 
narrow  staircase,  carpeted  with  oil-cloth.  On  the  third  floor 
she  threw  open  the  door  of  a  room  considerably  smaller  than 
the  bath-room  at  Clevedon  Square,  containing  a  low  iron 
bed,  and  an  iron  tripod  bearing  an  enamel  basin,  a  chipped 
pitcher  and  a  very  small  towel-rail.    A  looking-glass  framed 

[321] 


CONSEQUENCES 


in  mottled  yellow  plush  was  hung  crookedly  on  the  wall,  and 
beneath  it  stood  a  wooden  kitchen  chair.  There  was  a  little 
table  with  two  drawers  in  it  behind  the  door. 

Alex  looked  round  her  with  bewilderment.  A  convent  cell 
was  no  smaller  than  this,  and  presented  a  greater  aspect  of 
space  from  its  bareness. 

"  Is  there  a  sitting-room  ?  "  she  inquired. 

"  Not  separate  to  this  —  no,  Miss.  Bed-sitting-room,  this 
is  called.     Small,  but  then  I  suppose  you'd  be  out  all  day." 

For  a  moment  Alex  wondered  why. 

"  But  meals  ?  "  she  asked  feebly. 

"  Would  it  be  more  than  just  the  breakfast  and  supper, 
and  three  n^eals  on  Sunday  ?  " 

Alex  did  not  know  what  to  answer,  and  Mrs.  Hoxton 
surveyed  her. 

"  Where  are  you  working.  Miss  ?    Anywhere  near  ?  " 

"  Fm  not  working  anywhere  —  yet." 

Mrs.  Hoxton's  manner  changed  a  little. 

"If  you  want  two  rooms,  Miss,  and  full  board,  I  could 
accommodate  you  downstairs.  The  price  is  according,  of 
course  —  a  week  in  advance,  and  pay  by  the  week." 

Alex  followed  the  woman  downstairs  again.  She  was 
sure  that  this  was  not  the  kind  of  place  where  she  wanted 
to  live. 

Mrs.  Hoxton  showed  her  into  a  larger  bedroom  on  the 
first  floor,  just  opening  the  door  and  giving  Alex  a  glimpse 
of  extreme  untidiness  and  an  unmade  bed. 

"  My  gentleman  got  up  late  today  —  he  don't  go  to  'is  job 
Saturdays,  so  I  'aven't  put  the  room  to  rights  yet.  But  it's 
a  nice  room.  Miss,  and  will  be  vacant  on  Monday.  It  goes 
with  the  downstairs  sitting-room  in  the  front,  as  a  rule,  but 
that's  'ad  to  be  turned  into  a  bedroom  just  lately.  I've  been 
so  crowded." 

"  Will  that  be  empty  on  Monday,  too  ?  "  asked  Alex,  for 
the  sake  of  answering  something. 

"  Tonight,  Miss.  I  let  a  coloured  gentleman  'ave  it  —  a 
student,  you  know;  a  thing  I've  never  done  before,  either. 

[322] 


AUGUST 


Other  people  don't  like  it,  and  it  gives  a  name,  like,  for  not 
being  particular  who  one  takes.  So  he's  going,  and  I  shan't 
be  sorry.  I  don't  'old  with  making  talk,  and  it  isn't  as 
thoug*h  the  room  wouldn't  let  easy.  It's  a  beautiful  room, 
Miss." 

The  coloured  gentleman's  room  was  tidier  than  the  one 
upstairs,  but  a  haze  of  stale  tobacco  fumes  hung  round  it  and 
obscured  Alex'  view  of  a  short  leather  sofa  with  horse-hair 
breaking  from  it  in  patches,  a  small  round  table  in  the  middle 
of  the  room,  and  a  tightly-closed  window  looking  on  to  the 
traffic  of  Maiden  Road. 

"  About  terms.  Miss,"  Mrs.  Hoxton  began  suggestively  in 
the  passage. 

**  Oh,  I  couldn't  afford  much,"  Alex  began,  thinking  that 
it  was  more  difficult  than  she  had  supposed  to  walk  out  again 
saying  that  she  did  not,  after  all,  want  the  rooms. 

"  I'd  let  you  'ave  those  two  rooms,  and  full  board,  for 
two-ten  a  week !  "  cried  the  landlady. 

"Oh,  I  don't  think—" 

Mrs.  Hoxton  shrugged  her  shoulders,  looked  at  the  ceiling 
and  said  resignedly : 

"  Then  I  suppose  we  must  call  it  two  guineas,  though  I 
ought  to  ask  double.  But  you  can  come  in  right  away  on 
Monday,  Miss,  and  I  think  you'll  find  it  all  comfortable." 

"  But—"  said  Alex  faintly. 

She  felt  very  tired,  and  the  thought  of  a  further  search 
for  lodgings  wearied  her  and  almost  frightened  her.  Be- 
sides, the  policeman  had  told  her  that  this  was  a  cheap  neigh-^ 
bourhood.  Perhaps  anywhere  else  they  would  charge  much 
more.  Finally  she  temporized  feebly  with  the  reflection  that 
it  need  only  be  for  a  week  —  once  the  step  of  leaving  Cleve- 
don  Square  had  been  definitely  taken,  she  could  feel  herself 
free  to  find  a  more  congenial  habitation  at  her  leisure,  and 
when  she  might  feel  less  desperately  tired.  She  sighed,  as 
she  followed  the  line  of  least  resistance. 
Well,  I'll  come  on  Monday,  then." 

"  Yes,  Miss,"  the  landlady  answered  promptly.     "  May  I 

[323] 


k 


CONSEQUENCES 


have  your  name,  Miss  ?  —  and  the  first  week  in  advance  my 
rule,  as  I  think  I  mentioned.'* 

"  My  name  is  Miss  Clare." 

Alex  took  two  sovereigns  and  two  shillings,  fumbling,  out 
of  her  purse  and  handed  them  to  the  woman.  It  did  not 
occur  to  her  to  ask  for  any  form  of  receipt. 

*'  Will  you  be  wanting  anything  on  Monday,  Miss?  " 

Alex  looked  uncomprehending,  and  the  woman  eyed  her 
with  scarcely  veiled  contempt  and  added,  "  Supper,  or  any- 
thing?" 

"  Oh  —  yes.  Fd  better  come  in  time  for  dinner  —  for 
supper,  I  mean." 

"  Yes,  Miss.     Seven  o'clock  will  do  you,  I  suppose  ?  " 

Alex  thought  it  sounded  very  early,  but  she  did  not  feel 
that  she  cared  at  all,  and  said  that  seven  would  do  quite 
well. 

She  wondered  if  there  were  any  questions  which  she  ought 
to  ask,  but  could  think  of  none,  and  she  was  rather  afraid 
of  the  strident-voiced,  hard-faced  woman. 

But  Mrs.  Hoxton  seemed  to  be  quite  satisfied,  and  pulled 
open  the  door  as  though  it  was  obvious  that  the  interview 
had  come  to  an  end. 

"  Good  afternoon,"  said  Alex. 

"  Afternoon,"  answered  the  landlady,  as  she  slammed  the 
door  again,  almost  before  Alex  was  on  the  pavement  of 
Maiden  Road.  She  went  away  with  a  strangely  sinking 
heart.     To  what  had  she  committed  herself? 

All  the  arguments  which  Alex  had  been  brooding  over 
seemed  to  crumble  away  from  her  now  that  she  had  taken 
definite  action. 

She  repeated  to  herself  again  that  Violet  and  Cedric  did 
not  want  her,  that  Barbara  did  not  want  her,  that  there  was 
no  place  for  her  anywhere,  and  that  it  was  best  for  her  to 
make  her  own  arrangements  and  spare  them  all  the  neces- 
sity of  viewing  her  in  the  light  of  a  problem. 

But  what  would  Cedric  say  to  Maiden  Road?  Inwardly 
Alex  resolved  that  he  must  never  come  there.     If  she  said 

[324] 


AUGUST 


"  Hampstead  "  he  would  think  that  she  was  somewhere  close 
to  Barbara's  pretty  little  house. 

But  Barbara? 

Alex  sank,  utterly  jaded,  into  the  vacant  space  in  a 
crowded  omnibus.  It  was  full  outside,  and  the  atmosphere 
of  heat  and  humanity  inside  made  her  feel  giddy.  Argu- 
ments, self -justification  and  sick  apprehensions,  surged  in 
chaotic  bewilderment  through  her  mind. 


[325] 


XXVII 

The  Embezzlement 

ALEX,  full  of  unreasoning  panic,  made  her  move  to 
Maiden  Road. 
She  was  afraid  of  the  servants  in  Clevedon  Square, 
all  of  them  new  since  she  had  left  England,  and  only  told 
Ellen,  with  ill-concealed  confusion,  that  she  was  leaving  Lon- 
don for  the  present.  She  was  unaccountably  reheved  when 
Ellen  only  said,  impassively,  "  Very  good.  Miss,"  and  packed 
her  slender  belongings  without  comment  or  question. 

Suddenly  she  remembered  the  cheque  which  Cedric  had 
given  her  for  the  servants.  She  looked  at  it  doubtfully. 
Her  own  money  was  already  almost  exhausted,  thanks  to 
that  unexpected  claim  from  the  convent  in  Rome,  and  Alex 
supposed  that  the  sum  still  in  her  purse,  amounting  to  rather 
less  than  three  pounds,  would  only  last  her  for  about  a  fort- 
night in  Maiden  Road.  She  decided,  with  no  sense  of 
doubt,  that  she  had  better  keep  Cedric's  cheque.  It  was 
only  a  little  sum  to  him,  and  he  would  send  money  for  the 
servants.  He  had  said  that  he  was  ready  to  advance  money 
to  his  sister.  Characteristically,  Alex  dismissed  the  matter 
from  her  mind  as  unimportant.  She  had  never  learnt  any 
accepted  code  in  dealings  with  money,  and  her  own  instinct 
led  her  to  beHeve  it  an  unessential  question.  She  judged 
only  from  her  own  feelings,  which  would  have  remained 
quite  unstirred  by  any  emotions  but  those  the  most  matter- 
of-fact  at  any  claim,  direct  or  indirect,  justifiable  or  not, 
upon  her  purse. 

She  had  never  learnt  the  rudiments  of  pride,  or  of 
straight-dealing  in  questions  of  finance.  But  in  Maiden 
Road  Alex  was,  after  all,  to  learn  many  things. 

There  were  material  considerations  equally  unknown  to 

[326] 


THE   EMBEZZLEMENT 

Clevedon  Square  and  to  the  austere  but  systematic  doling- 
out  of  convent  necessities,  which  were  brought  home  to  her 
with  a  startled  sense  of  dismay  from  her  first  evening  at 
252.  She  had  never  thought  of  bringing  soap  with  her,  or 
boxes  of  matches,  yet  these  commodities  did  not  appear  as  a 
matter  of  course,  as  they  had  always  done  elsewhere.  There 
was  gas  in  both  the  rooms,  but  there  were  no  candles.  There 
was  no  hot  water. 

"  You  can  boil  your  own  kettle  on  the  gas-ring  on  the 
landing,"  Mrs.  Hoxton  said  indifferently,  and  left  her  new 
lodger  to  the  realization  that  the  purchase  of  a  kettle  had 
never  occurred  to  her  at  all. 

Buying  the  kettle,  and  a  supply  of  candles  and  matches 
and  soap,  left  her  with  only  just  enough  money  in  hand  for 
her  second  week's  rent,  and  when  she  wanted  notepaper 
and  ink  and  stamps  to  write  to  Barbara,  Alex  decided  that 
she  must  appropriate  Cedric's  cheque  for  the  servants'  wages 
to  her  own  uses.     She  felt  hardly  any  qualms. 

This  wasn't  like  that  bill  from  Rome,  which  she  would 
have  been  afraid  to  let  him  see.  He  would  have  talked 
about  the  dishonesty  of  convents,  and  asked  why  she  had 
not  told  him  sooner  of  their  charges  against  her,  and  have 
looked  at  her  with  that  almost  incredulous  expression  of 
amazed  disgust  had  she  admitted  her  entire  oblivion  of  the 
whole  consideration. 

But  this  cheque  for  the  servants. 

It  would  enable  her  to  pay  her  own  expenses  until  she 
could  get  the  work  which  she  still  vaguely  anticipated,  and 
the  sum  meant  nothing  to  Cedric.  She  would  write  and 
tell  him  that  she  had  cashed  the  money,  sure  that  he  would 
not  mind,  in  fulfilment  of  his  many  requests  to  her  to  look 
upon  him  as  her  banker. 

But  she  did  not  write,  though  she  cashed  the  cheque.  The 
days  slipped  by  in  a  sort  of  monotonous  discomfort,  but  it 
was  very  hot,  and  she  learnt  to  find  her  way  to  Hampstead 
Heath,  where  she  could  sit  for  hours,  not  reading,  for  she 
had  no  books,  but  brooding  in  a  sort  of  despairing  resigna- 


CONSEQUENCES 


tion  over  the  past  and  the  nightmare-seeming  present.  The 
conviction  remained  with  her  ineradicably  that  the  whole 
thing  was  a  dream  —  that  she  would  wake  up  again  to  the 
London  of  the  middle  'nineties  and  find  herself  a  young  girl 
again,  healthy  and  eager,  and  troubling  Lady  Isabel,  and, 
more  remotely,  Sir  Francis,  with  her  modern  exigencies  and 
demands  to  live  her  own  life,  the  war-cry  of  those  clamorous 
'eighties  and  'nineties,  of  which  the  young  new  century  had 
so  easily  reaped  the  harvest.  She  could  not  bring  herself  to 
believe  that  her  own  life  had  been  lived,  and  that  only  this 
was  left. 

Alex  sometimes  felt  that  she  was  not  alive  at  all  —  that 
she  was  only  a  shade  moving  amongst  the  living,  unable  to 
get  into  real  communication  with  any  of  them. 

She  did  not  think  of  the  future.  There  was  no  future  for 
her.  There  was  only  an  irrevocable  past  and  a  sordid,  yet 
dream-like  present,  that  clung  round  her  spirit  as  a  damp 
mist  might  have  clung  round  her  person,  intangible  and  yet 
penetrating  and  all-pervading,  hampering  and  stifling  her. 

The  modicum  of  physical  strength  which  she  had  regained 
in  Clevedon  Square  was  ebbing  imperceptibly  from  her.  It 
was  difficult  to  sleep  very  well  in  Maiden  Road,  where  the 
trams  and  the  omnibuses  passed  in  incessant,  jerking  succes- 
sion, and  the  children  screamed  in  the  road  late  at  nights 
and  incredibly  early  in  the  mornings.  The  food  was  neither 
good  nor  well  prepared,  but  Alex  ate  little  in  the  heat,  and 
reflected  that  it  was  an  economy  not  to  be  hungry. 

The  need  for  economy  was  being  gradually  borne  in  upon 
her,  as  her  small  stock  of  money  diminished  and  there  came 
nothing  to  replace  it.  Presently  she  exerted  herself  to  find 
a  registry  office,  where  she  gave  her  name  and  address,  and 
was  contemptuously  and  suspiciously  eyed  by  an  old  lady 
with  dyed  red  hair  who  sat  at  a  writing-table,  and  asked  her 
a  fee  of  half-a-crown  for  entering  her  name  in  a  ledger. 

"  No  diplomas  and  no  certificate  won't  take  you  far  in 
teaching  now-a-days,"  she  said  unpleasantly.  "  Lan- 
guages ?  " 


[328] 


THE   EMBEZZLEMENT 

"  French  quite  well  and  a  little  Italian.  Enough  to  give 
conversation  lessons,"  Alex  faltered. 

"  No  demand  for  'em  whatever.  I'll  let  you  know,  but 
don't  expect  anything  to  turn  up,  especially  at  this  time  of 
year,  with  every  one  out  of  town." 

But  by  a  miraculous  stroke  of  fortune  something  did 
turn  up.  The  woman  from  the  registry  office  sent  Alex  a 
laconic  postcard,  giving  her  the  address  of  "  a  lady  singer  in 
Camden  Town"  who  was  wiUing  to  pay  two  shillings  an 
hour  in  return  for  sufficient  instruction  in  Italian  to  enable 
her  to  sing  Italian  songs. 

Elated,  Alex  looked  out  the  conversation  manual  of  her 
convent  days,  and  at  three  o'clock  set  out  to  find  the  address 
in  Camden  Town. 

She  discovered  it  with  difficulty,  and  arrived  late.  The 
appointed  hour  had  been  half-past  three. 

Shown  into  a  small  sitting-room,  crowded  with  furniture 
and  plastered  with  signed  photographs,  she  sank,  breathless 
and  heated,  into  a  chair,  and  waited. 

The  lady  singer,  when  she  came,  was  irate  at  the  delay. 
Her  manner  frightened  Alex,  who  acquiesced  in  bewildered 
humiliation  to  a  stipulation  that  only  half -fees  must  be 
charged  for  the  curtailed  hour.  She  gave  her  lesson  badly, 
imparting  information  with  a  hesitation  that  even  to  her  own 
ears  sounded  as  though  she  were  uncertain  of  her  facts. 
However,  her  pupil  ungraciously  drew  out  a  shilling  from 
a  small  chain-purse  and  gave  it  to  Alex  when  she  left,  and 
she  bade  her  come  again  in  three  days'  time. 

The  lessons  went  on  for  three  weeks.  They  tired  Alex 
strangely,  but  she  felt  glad  that  she  could  earn  money,  how- 
ever little ;  and  although  the  shillings  went  almost  at  once  in 
small  necessities  which  she  had  somehow  never  foreseen,  it 
was  not  until  the  middle  of  September  that  she  began  once 
more  to  reach  the  end  of  her  resources. 

Just  as  she  had  decided  that  it  would  be  necessary  for  her 
to  write  to  Cedric,  she  received  a  letter  from  him,  forwarded 
from  her  bank. 

[329] 


CONSEQUENCES 


Alex  turned  white  as  she  read  it. 

"  My  dear  Alex, 

"  I  am  altogether  at  a  loss  to  understand  why  Ellen  (the 
upper-housemaid  at  home)  writes  to  Violet  on  Friday  last, 
Sept.  12,  that  you  have  left  Clevedon  Square,  and  that  she 
and  the  other  servant  have  not  yet  received  the  money  for 
their  board  and  wages.  This  last  I  take  to  be  an  oversight 
on  your  part,  but  you  will  doubtless  put  it  right  at  once, 
since  you  will  remember  that  I  handed  you  a  cheque  for  that 
purpose  just  before  leaving  London.  As  to  your  own  move- 
ments, I  need  hardly  say,  my  dear  Alex,  that  I  do  not  claim 
to  have  any  sort  of  authority  over  them  of  whatever  kind, 
but  both  Violet  and  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  it  would  have 
been  more  friendly,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  had  you  given  us 
some  hint  as  to  your  intentions.  Knowing  that  Barbara  is 
already  abroad,  and  Pamela  with  her  friends  yachting,  I  can 
only  hope  that  you  have  received  some  unforeseen  invitation 
which  appealed  to  you  more  than  the  prospect  of  solitude  in 
Clevedon  Square.  It  would  have  been  desirable  had  you 
left  your  address  with  the  servants,  but  I  presume  the  matter 
escaped  your  memory,  as  they  appear  to  be  completely  in 
the  dark  as  to  your  movements. 

"  Violet  is  looking  quite  herself  again,  and  sends  many  af- 
fectionate messages.  She  will  doubtless  write  to  you  on 
receipt  of  a  few  lines  giving  her  your  address.  I  am  com- 
pelled to  send  this  letter  through  the  care  of  Messrs.  Wil- 
liams, which  you  will  agree  with  me  is  an  unnecessarily 
elaborate  method  of  communication. 

"  Your  affectionate  brother, 

"  Cedric  Clare." 

Alex  was  carried  back  through  the  years  to  the  sense  of 
remorse  and  bewilderment  with  which  she  had  listened  to 
the  measured,  irrefutable  condemnations,  expressed  with 
the  same  unerring  precision,  of  Sir  Francis  Clare.  She 
realized  herself  again,  sick  with  crying  and  cold  with  terror, 

[330] 


THE   EMBEZZLEMENT 

standing  shaking  before  his  relentless  justice,  knowing  her- 
self to  be  again,  for  ever  and  hopelessly,  in  the  wrong.  She 
would  never  be  anything  else. 

She  knew  it  now. 

Her  sense  of  honour,  of  truth  and  justice,  was  perverted 
—  in  direct  disaccord  with  that  of  the  world.  What  would 
her  brother  say  to  her  misuse  of  the  money  that  he  had  en- 
trusted to  her?  Alex  knew  now,  with  sudden,  terrifying 
certainty  how  he  would  view  the  transaction  which  had 
seemed  to  her  so  simple  an  expedient.  She  knew  that  even 
were  she  able  to  make  the  almost  incredible  plea  of  a  sudden 
temptation,  a  desperate  need  of  money,  that  had  led  her 
voluntarily  to  commit  an  act  of  dishonesty,  it  would  stand 
her  in  better  stead  than  a  mere  statement  of  the  terrible 
truth  —  that  no  voice  within  her  had  told  her  of  dishonour, 
that  she  had  —  outrageous  paradox !  —  committed  an  act  of 
dishonesty  in  good  faith. 

To  Cedric,  the  lack  in  her  would  seem  so  utterly  perverted, 
so  incomprehensible,  that  there  would  appear  to  be  no  pos- 
sibility of  that  forgiveness  which,  as  a  Christian,  he  could 
consciously  have  extended  to  any  wilful  breaking  of  the  law. 
But  there  would  be  no  question  of  forgiveness  for  this. 
It  was  not  the  money,  Alex  knew  that.  It  was  her  own 
extraordinary  moral  deficiency  that  put  her  outside  the 
pale. 

Perhaps,  thought  Alex  drearily,  this  was  how  criminals 
always  felt.  They  did  the  things  for  which  they  were  pun- 
ished because  of  some  flaw  in  their  mental  outlook  —  they 
didn't  see  that  the  things  mattered,  until  it  was  too  late. 
They  had  to  be  saved  from  themselves  by  punishment  or 
removal,  or  sometimes  by  death;  and  for  the  protection  of 
the  rest  of  the  community,  too,  it  was  necessary  to  penalize 
those  who  could  not  or  would  not  conform  to  the  standard. 
Alex  saw  it  all. 

But  dimly,  involuntarily  almost,  an  echo  from  her  child- 
hood's days  came  back  to  her,  vaguely  formulated  into 
words : 

[331] 


CONSEQUENCES 


^'Always  take  the  part  of  the  people  in  the  wrong —  they 
need  it  most." 

The  only  conviction  to  which  she  could  lay  claim  was 
somehow  embodied  in  that  sentiment. 


[332] 


XXVIII 

Cedric 

SHE  wrote  to  Cedric,  the  sense  of  having  put  herself 
irrevocably  in  the  wrong  by  her  own  act  making  her 
explanation  into  an  utterly  bald,  lifeless  statement  of 
fact.  She  felt  entirely  unable  to  enter  into  any  analysis  of 
her  folly,  and  besides,  it  would  have  been  of  no  use.  Facts 
were  facts.  She  had  taken  Cedric's  money,  which  he  had 
given  her  for  one  purpose,  and  used  it  for  another.  There 
had  not  even  been  any  violent  struggle  with  temptation  to 
palliate  the  act. 

Alex  felt  a  sort  of  dazed  stupefaction  at  herself. 

She  was  bad,  she  told  herself,  bad  all  through,  and  this 
was  how  bad  people  felt.  Sick  with  disappointment,  and 
utterly  unavailing  remorse,  knowing  all  the  time  that  there 
was  no  strength  in  them  ever  to  resist  any  temptation,  how- 
ever base. 

She  wondered  if  there  was  a  hell,  as  the  convent  teaching 
had  so  definitely  told  her.  If  so,  Alex  shudderingly  con- 
templated her  doom.  But  she  prayed  desperately  that  there 
might  be  nothing  after  death  but  utter  oblivion.  It  was  then 
that  the  thought  of  death  first  came  to  her,  not  with  the  wild, 
impotent  longing  of  her  days  of  struggle,  but  with  an  insidi- 
ous suggestion  of  rest  and  escape. 

She  played  with  the  idea,  but  for  the  most  part  her  facul- 
ties were  absorbed  in  the  increasing  strain  of  waiting  for 
Cedric's  reply  to  her  confession. 

It  came  in  the  shape  of  a  telegram. 

"  Shall  be  in  London  Wednesday  24th.  Will  you  lunch 
Clevedon  Square  1.30.     Reply  paid." 

Alex  felt  an  unreasonable  relief,  both  at  the  postponement 
of  an  immediate  crisis,  and  at  the  reflection  that,  at  all  events, 

[333] 


CONSEQUENCES 


Cedric  did  not  mean  to  come  to  Maiden  Road.  She  did  not 
want  him  to  see  those  strange,  sordid  surroundings  to  which 
she  had  fled  from  the  shelter  of  her  old  home. 

Alex  telegraphed  an  affirmative  reply  to  her  brother,  and 
waited  in  growing  apathy  for  the  interview,  which  she  could 
now  only  dread  in  theory.  Her  sense  of  feeling  seemed 
numbed  at  last. 

Something  of  the  old  terror,  however,  revived  when  she 
confronted  Cedric  again  in  the  library.  He  greeted  her  with 
a  sort  of  kindly  seriousness,  under  which  she  wonderingly 
detected  a  certain  nervousness.  During  lunch  they  spoke  of 
Violet,  of  the  shooting  that  Cedric  had  been  enjoying  in 
Scotland.  The  slight  shade  of  pomposity  which  recalled  Sir 
Francis  was  always  discernible  in  all  Cedric's  kindly  cour- 
tesy as  host.  After  lunch  he  rather  ceremoniously  ushered 
his  sister  into  the  library  again. 

"  Sit  down,  my  dear  —  you  look  tired.  You  don't  smoke, 
I  know.     D'you  mind  if  I  — ?  " 

He  drew  at  his  pipe  once  or  twice,  then  carefully  rammed 
the  tobacco  more  tightly  into  the  bowl  with  a  nicotine- 
stained  finger.  Still  gazing  at  the  wedged  black  mass,  he 
said  in  a  voice  of  careful  unconcern : 

"  About  this  move  of  yours,  Alex.  Violet  and  I  couldn't 
altogether  understand —  That's  really  what  brought  me 
down,  and  the  question  of  that  cheque  I  gave  you  for  the 
servants.     I  couldn't  quite  make  out  your  letter  — " 

He  paused,  as  though  to  give  her  an  opportunity  for 
speech,  still  looking  away  from  her.  But  Alex  remained 
silent,  in  a  sort  of  paralysis. 

"  Suppose  we  take  one  question  at  a  time,"  suggested 
Cedric  pleasantly.  "  The  cheque  affair  is,  of  course,  a  very 
small  one,  and  quite  easily  cleared  up.  One  only  has  to  be, 
scrupulous  in  money  matters  because  they  are  money  mat- 
ters—  you  know  father's  way  of  thinking,  and  I  must  say 
I  entirely  share  it." 

There  was  no  need  to  tell  Alex  so. 

"  Have  you  got  the  cheque  with  you,  Alex  ?  " 

[334] 


CEDRIC 


"  No,"  said  Alex  at  last.  "  Didn't  you  understand  my 
letter,  then?" 

Cedric's  spectacles  began  to  tap  slowly  against  the  back  of 
his  left  hand,  held  in  the  loose  grasp  of  his  right. 

"  You  —  er  — •  cashed  that  cheque  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

Alex  felt  as  though  she  were  being  put  to  the  torture  of 
the  Inquisition,  but  was  utterly  unable  to  do  more  than 
reply  in  monosyllables  to  Cedric's  level,  judicial  questions. 

"  May  I  ask  to  what  purpose  you  applied  the  money  ?  " 

"  Cedric,  it's  not  fair !  "  broke  from  Alex.  "  I've  written 
and  told  you  what  I  did  —  I  needed  money,  and  I  —  I 
thought  you  wouldn't  mind.  I  used  it  for  myself  —  and  I 
meant  to  write  and  tell  you  — " 

"  You  thought  I  wouldn't  mind !  "  repeated  Cedric  in  tones 
of  stupefaction. 

"  You  said  you  would  advance  me  money  —  I  knew  you 
could  write  another  cheque  for  the  servants'  wages.  I  —  I 
didn't  think  of  your  minding." 

**  Mind !  "  said  Cedric  again,  with  reiteration  worthy  of 
his  nursery  days.  "  My  dear  girl,  you  don't  suppose  it's 
the  money  I  mind,  do  you  ?  " 

"  No,  no  —  I  ought  to  have  asked  you  first  —  but  I  didn't 
think  —  it  seemed  a  natural  thing  to  do — " 

"  Good  Lord,  Alex ! "  cried  Cedric,  more  moved  than  she 
had  ever  seen  him.  "  Do  you  understand  what  you're  say- 
ing?   A  natural  thing  to  do  to  embezzle  money?'' 

Tears  of  terror  and  of  utter  bewilderment  seized  on 
Alex'  enfeebled  powers,  and  deprived  her  of  utterance. 

Cedric  began  to  pace  the  library,  speaking  rapidly  and 
without  looking  at  her. 

'^  If  you'd  only  written  and  told  me  what  you'd  done  at 
once  —  though  Heaven  knows  that  would  have  been  bad 
enough  —  but  to  do  a  thing  like  that  and  then  let  it  rest! 
Didn't  you  know  that  it  must  be  found  out  sooner  or  later  ?  " 

He  cast  a  fleeting  glance  at  Alex,  who  sat  with  the  tears 
pouring  down  her  quivering  face,  but  she  said  nothing.    It 

[335] 


CONSEQUENCES 


was  of  no  use  to  explain  to  Cedric  that  she  had  never 
thought  of  not  being  found  out.  She  had  meant  no  con- 
cealment. She  had  thought  her  action  so  simple  a  one  that 
it  had  hardly  needed  explanation  or  justification.  It  had 
merely  been  not  worth  while  to  write. 

Cedric's  voice  went  on,  gradually  gaining  in  power  as  the 
agitation  that  had  shaken  him  subsided  under  his  own 
fluency. 

"You  know  that  it's  a  prosecutable  offence,  Alex?  Of 
course,  there's  no  question  of  such  a  thing,  but  to  trade  on 
that  certainty  — " 

Alex  made  an  inarticulate  sound. 

"  Violet  says  of  course  you  didn't  know  what  you  were 
doing.  That  wretched  place  —  that  convent  —  has  played 
havoc  with  you  altogether.  When  I  think  of  those  peo- 
ple — ! "  Cedric's  face  darkened.  "  But  hang  it,  Alex, 
you  were  brought  up  like  the  rest  of  us.  And  on  a  ques- 
tion of  honour  —  think  of  father !  " 

Alex  had  stopped  crying.  She  was  about  to  make  her  last 
stand,  with  the  last  strength  that  in  her  lay. 

"  Cedric  —  listen  to  me.  You  must !  You  don't  under- 
stand. I  didn't  look  at  it  from  your  point  of  view  —  I  didn't 
see  it  like  that.  There's  something  wrong  with  me  —  there 
must  be  —  but  it  didn't  seem  to  me  to  matter.  I  know  you 
won't  believe  me  —  but  I  thought  the  money  was  quite  a 
little,  unimportant  thing,  and  that  you'd  understand,  and  say 
I'd  done  right  to  take  it  for  granted  that  I  might  have  it." 

"  But  it's  not  the  money !  "  groaned  Cedric.  "  Though 
what  on  earth  you  wanted  it  for,  when  you  had  no  expenses 
and  your  allowance  just  paid  in —  But  that's  not  the 
point.  Can't  you  see,  Alex  ?  It's  not  this  wretched  cheque 
in  itself;  it's  the  principle  of  the  thing." 

Alex  gazed  at  him  quite  hopelessly.  The  flickering  spark 
of  spirit  died  out  and  left  her  soul  in  darkness. 

Cedric  faced  her. 

"  I  couldn't  believe  that  your  letter  really  meant  what  it 
seemed  to  mean,"  he  said  slowly ;  "  but  if  it  does  —  as  on 

[336] 


CEDRIC 


your  own  showing  it  does  —  then  I  understand  your  leaving 
us,  needless  to  say.  Where  are  you  living  —  what  is  this 
place,  Maiden  Road  ?  " 

Characteristically,  he  drew  out  her  letter,  and  referred  to 
the  address  carefully. 

"Where  is  Maiden  Road?" 

"  In  Hampstead  —  near  Barbara." 

"  Are  you  in  rooms  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  How  did  you  find  them  ?    Who  recommended  them  ?  " 

She  made  no  answer,  and  Cedric  gazed  at  her  with  an 
expression  of  half-angry,  half-compassionate  perplexity. 

"  You  are  entitled  to  keep  your  own  counsel,  of  course, 
and  to  make  your  own  arrangements,  but  I  must  say,  Alex, 
that  the  thought  of  you  disturbs  me  very  much.  Your  whole 
position  is  unusual  —  and  your  attitude  makes  it  almost  im- 
possible to  — "  He  broke  off.  "  Violet  begged  me  — 
quite  unnecessarily,  but  you  know  what  she  is  —  not  to 
let  you  feel  as  though  there  were  any  estrangement  —  to 
say  that  whatever  arrangement  you  preferred  should  be 
made.  Of  course,  Pamela's  marriage  will  add  to  your 
resources  —  you  understand  that?  She  is  marrying  an 
extremely  wealthy  man,  and  I  shall  have  not  the  slightest 
hesitation  in  allowing  her  to  make  over  her  share  of 
father's  money  to  you  as  soon  as  it  can  be  arranged.  She 
wishes  it  herself." 

He  paused,  as  though  for  some  expression  of  gratitude 
from  Alex,  but  she  made  none.  Pam  had  everything,  and 
now  she  was  to  have  the  credit  and  pleasure  of  a  generosity 
which  would  cost  her  nothing  as  well.  Alex  maintained  a 
bitter  silence. 

*•'  The  obvious  course  is  for  you  to  join  Barbara,  paying 
your  half  of  expenses,  as  you  will  now  be  enabled  to  do." 

"  Barbara  doesn't  want  me." 

"  It  is  the  natural  arrangement,"  repeated  Cedric  inflex- 
ibly. "  And  I  must  add,  Alex,  that  you  seem  to  me  to  be 
terribly  unfitted  to  manage  your  own  life  in  any  way.     If 

[337] 


CONSEQUENCES 


what  you  have  told  me  is  the  case,  I  can  only  infer  that  your 
moral  sense  is  completely  perverted.  I  couldn't  have  be- 
lieved it  of  one  of  us  —  of  one  of  my  father's  children." 

Alex  knew  that  the  bed-rock  of  Cedric's  character  was 
reached.  She  had  come  to  the  point  where,  for  Cedric,  right 
and  wrong  began  and  ended  —  honour. 

They  would  never  get  any  nearer  to  one  another  now. 
The  fundamental  principle  which  governed  life  for  Cedric 
was  deficient  in  Alex. 

She  got  up  slowly  and  began  to  pull  on  her  shabby  gloves. 

"Will  you  forgive  me,  Cedric?"  she  half  sobbed. 

"It  isn't  a  question  of  forgiveness.  Of  course  I  will. 
But  if  you'd  only  asked  me  for  that  wretched  money,  Alex ! 
What  you  did  was  to  embezzle  it  —  neither  more  nor  less. 
Oh,  good  Lord!" 

He  looked  at  her  with  fresh  despair  and  then  rang  the  bell. 

*'  You're  going  to  have  a  taxi,"  he  told  her  authoritatively. 
"  You're  not  fit  to  go  any  other  way.  Alex,  my  dear,  I'd 
give  my  right  hand  for  this  not  to  have  happened  —  for 
Heaven's  sake  come  to  me  if  you  want  anything.  How 
much  shall  I  give  you  now  ?  " 

He  unlocked  the  writing-table  drawer  agitatedly.  Alex 
thought  to  herself  hysterically,  "  He  thinks  I  may  steal 
money,  perhaps,  from  somebody  else,  if  I  want  it,  and  perhaps 
I  should."  And  with  a  sense  of  degradation  that  made  her 
feel  physically  sick,  she  put  into  her  purse  the  gold  and  the 
pile  of  silver  that  he  pushed  into  her  hand. 

Cedric  straightened  himself,  and  taking  off  his  glasses, 
wiped  them  carefully. 

"  Write  to  me,  Alex,  and  let  me  know  wliat  you  want  to 
do.  Barbara  will  be  back  soon  —  you  must  go  to  her  —  at 
any  rate  for  a  time  —  till  after  Pamela's  wedding.  You 
know  that's  fixed  for  December  now?  And,  my  dear,  for 
Heaven's  sake  let's  forget  this  ghastly  business.  No  one  on 
this  earth  but  you  and  I  and  Violet  need  ever  know  of  it." 

"  No,"  said  Alex. 

She  looked  at  him  with  despair  invading  her  whole  being. 

[338] 


CEDRIC 


"  Good-bye,  Cedric.     You've  been  very,  very  kind  to  me." 

"  The  taxi  is  at  the  door,  sir." 

"  Thank  you." 

Cedric  took  his  sister  into  the  hall,  and  she  gave  a  curious, 
fleeting  glance  round  her  at  the  familiar  surroundings,  and 
at  the  broad  staircase  where  the  Clare  children  had  run  up 
and  down  and  played  and  quarrelled  together,  in  that  other 
existence. 

"  Good-bye,  dear.  Write  your  plans,  and  come  and  see  us 
as  soon  as  we  get  back.  It  won't  be  more  than  a  week  or 
two  now." 

Cedric  put  her  into  the  waiting  taxi,  and  stood  on  the  steps 
looking  after  her  as  the  cab  turned  out  of  Clevedon  Square. 
And  Alex,  crouched  into  a  corner  of  the  swiftly-moving 
taxi,  knew  herself  capable  of  any  treachery,  any  moral  in- 
famy to  which  she  might  be  tempted,  since  Cedric  had  been 
right  when  he  said  that  her  sense  of  honour,  of  fundamental 
rectitude,  was  completely  perverted. 


[339] 


XXIX 

Forgiveness 

THE  weather  broke  suddenly,  and  it  became  cold  and 
rainy.  For  two  or  three  days  Alex  sat  in  her  sitting- 
room  at  Maiden  Road  and  heard  the  trams  and  the 
omnibuses  clash  past,  and  the  children  screaming  to  one  an- 
other in  the  street.  She  could  hardly  have  said  when  she 
had  first  realized  that  it  was  impossible  for  her  to  go  on 
living.  But  the  determination,  now  that  it  was  there,  full- 
grown,  had  brought  with  it  a  sense  of  utter  finality. 

For  two  or  three  days  she  felt  stunned,  and  yet  driven  by 
a  desperate  feeling  that  it  was  necessary  for  her  to  think,  to 
make  a  plan.     But  she  could  not  think. 

Then  one  evening  Mrs.  Hoxton,  the  landlady,  said  to  her 
curiously : 

"  Wouldn't  you  like  a  fire,  tonight  ? "  She  seldom  said 
"  Miss  "  in  speaking  to  Alex.  "  It's  so  chilly,  all  of  a  sud- 
den, and  you  look  ill,  really,  now,  you  do." 

Alex  felt  rather  surprised.  Perhaps  she  was  ill,  which 
would  account  for  the  impossibility  of  consecutive  thought. 
A  fire  would  be  very  nice.  She  shivered  involuntarily,  look- 
ing at  her  little  empty  grate  crammed  with  cut  paper.  She 
remembered  that  there  was  no  need  to  consider  expense  any 
more. 

"  Yes,  Fd  like  a  fire,  please,"  she  said  gently.  And  that 
evening  she  sat  close  to  the  pleasant  blaze,  flickering  on  the 
wall,  and  dimly  recalling  to  her  the  nursery  at  Clevedon 
Square  in  the  old  days,  and  the  power  of  thought  came  back 
to  her. 

It  was  as  though  the  warmth  and  companionship  of  the 
flames  had  suddenly  unsealed  something  frozen  up  within 

[340] 


FORGIVENESS 


her,  and  she  became  more  herself  than  she  had  been  for 
many  months.  With  the  horrible,  pressing  dread  of  an  un- 
bearable present  and  an  unimaginable  future  lifted  from 
her  heart,  Alex  felt  a  pervading  lucidity  of  thought,  to  which 
she  had  for  years  been  a  stranger,  take  possession  of  her. 
She  knew  suddenly  that  she  was,  for  a  little  while,  to  regain 
faculties  that  had  been  atrophied  within  her  since  the  far, 
free  days  of  her  girlhood.     She  b^gan  to  reflect. 

Why  had  life,  to  which  she  had  looked  forward  so  eagerly, 
with  such  confident  anticipation  of  some  wonderful  happi- 
ness, which  should  be  in  proportion  to  the  immense  capacity 
for  realizing  it  which  she  knew  to  exist  within  her,  have 
proved  to  be  only  a  succession  of  defeats,  of  receding  hopes 
and  of  unfulfilled  desires? 

Alex  did  not  question  that  the  fault  lay  with  herself. 
From  her  baby  days,  under  the  unvarnished  plain  speaking 
of  old  Nurse,  she  had  known  herself  to  be  the  black  sheep 
of  every  flock.  And  she  had  not  sinned  splendidly,  dra- 
matically, either.  Her  sins  had  been  those  of  petty  mean- 
ness, of  shirking  and  evading,  of  small  self-indulgences  and 
childish  tyranny  at  the  expense  of  others,  of  vulgar  lies  and 
half-truths. 

Those  sins  which  find  little  or  no  place  in  the  decalogue, 
and  which  &tand  lowest  in  the  scale  by  which  the  opinion  of 
others  is  meted  out  to  us. 

Those  are  the  things  which  are  not  forgiven.  That  was 
it,  Alex  told  herself,  with  a  feeling  of  having  suddenly  struck 
the  keynote.     Forgiveness. 

Forgiveness  was  the  key  to  everything.  Alex,  in  the 
sudden  surety  of  vision  that  had  come  to  her,  did  not  doubt 
that  her  own  interpretation  of  the  word  was  the  right  one. 
Forgiveness  meant  understanding  —  not  condemnation  and 
subsequent  pardon.  It  did  not  mean  the  bewildered,  scan- 
dalized, and  yet  regretful  oblivion  to  which  Cedric  would 
consign  her  memory  and  that  of  her  many  failings,  it  did 
not  mean  Barbara's  detached,  indifferent  kindness,  carefully 
measured  in  terms  of  material  resources,  nor  Pamela's  and 

[341] 


CONSEQUENCES 


Archie's  good-natured  patronage,  half-stifled  in  mirth,  of 
which  the  very  object  was  the  gulf  that  separated  them  from 
their  sister.  It  did  not  even  mean  Violet's  soft  pity  and 
unresentful  acceptance  of  facts  that  amazed  her.  Looking 
further  back,  Alex  knew  that  it  did  not  mean  either  the 
serious,  perplexed  pardon  that  Sir  Francis  had  tendered  to 
his  troublesome  daughter,  or  Lady  Isabel's  half -complaining, 
half -affectionate  remonstrances. 

It  did  not  in  any  way  occur  to  her  to  blame  them  for  a 
lack  of  which  she  had  all  her  life  been  subconsciously  aware 
in  all  their  forbearance.  She  told  herself,  with  a  fresh 
sense  of  enlightenment,  that  they  had  not  understood  because 
it  was  in  none  of  them  to  have  yielded  to  those  temptations 
which  had  beset  and  mastered  her  so  easily.  Measuring  her 
fraility  by  their  own  strength,  they  had  only  seen  her  utter 
failure  in  resistance,  and  been  shamed  and  grieved  by  it. 
Alex  knew  that  in  hereslf  was  another  standard  of  forgive- 
ness; she  could  never  condemn,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
she  herself  had  failed,  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  Unre- 
sentf  ully,  she  was  able  to  sum  it  all  up,  as  it  were,  when  she 
told  herself,  "  People  who  would  have  resisted  temptation 
themselves,  can't  understand  those  who  fall  —  so  they  can't 
really  forgive.  But  the  bad  ones,  who  know  that  they  have 
given  way  all  along  the  line,  know  that  any  temptation  would 
have  been  too  strong  for  them  —  it's  only  chance  whether  it 
comes  their  way  or  not  —  so  they  can  understand." 

She  felt  oddly  contented,  as  at  having  reached  a  solution. 

Later  on,  her  thoughts  turned  to  the  past  again,  and  to  the 
childish  days  when  she  had  been  the  leading  spirit  in  the 
Clevedon  Square  nursery.  But  the  memory  of  that  past, 
incredible,  security  and  assurance,  made  her  begin  to  cry,  and 
she  wiped  away  blinding  tears  and  told  herself  that  she  must 
not  give  way  to  them.  She  did  not  at  first  quite  know  why 
she  must  reserve  the  tiny  modicum  of  strength  still  left  her, 
but  presently  she  realized  that  the  end  which  had  become 
inevitable  could  not  be  reached  without  decisive  action  of 
her  own. 

[342] 


FORGIVENESS 


Alex'  logic  was  elementary,  and  its  directness  left  her  no 
loophole  for  doubt. 

She  could  endure  the  plane  of  existence  on  which  she 
found  herself  no  longer.  If  she  fled  in  search  of  other  con- 
ditions, it  was  with  full  certainty  that  these  could  not  be  less 
tolerable  than  those  from  which  she  was  flying,  and  at  the 
back  of  her  mind  was  a  strange,  growing  hope  that  perhaps 
that  forgiveness  of  which  her  mind  was  full,  might  be  found 
beyond  the  veil. 

"  After  all,"  thought  Alex,  *'  it's  even  chances.  If  reli- 
gion is  all  true,  then  I  must  go  to  hell,  whether  I  kill  myself 
or  not,  and  if  it  isn't,  then  perhaps  I  shall  just  go  out  and 
know  nothing  more  —  ever  —  or  perhaps  it  will  be  really  a 
new  beginning,  and  there  will  be  somebody  or  something 
who  will  forgive  me,  and  let  me  start  over  again." 

She  began  to  feel  rather  excited,  as  though  she  were  about 
to  try  an  experiment  that  might  best  be  described  as  a 
gamble. 

Mrs.  Hoxton,  coming  in  with  the  small  supper-tray,  looked 
at  her  sharply  two  or  three  times,  and  when  she  had  gone 
away  again,  Alex,  turning  to  the  glass,  saw  that  her  eyes  were 
shining  and  looking  enormously  large  and  wide-pupilled. 

"  I  believe  I  am  happy  tonight,"  she  thought  wonderingly. 

While  she  ate  her  supper  she  tried  to  make  a  plan,  but 
the  ejccitement  within  her  was  growing  steadily,  and  she 
could  only  think  out  eager  self -justification  for  her  own 
decision. 

"  It  won't  hurt  any  one  else  —  nobody  will  mind.  In  fact, 
when  they've  got  over  the  first  shock,  it  will  be  a  relief  to 
them  all.  They've  been  very  kind  —  Violet  and  Cedric  — 
Violet  most  of  all  —  but  they  haven't  understood.  They'd 
have  understood  better  if  I'd  been  a  bad  woman  —  lived  with 
wicked  men,  or  things  like  that.  I  suppose  I  should  have 
done  that  too,  if  it  had  come  my  way  —  but  then  I  never 
had  the  temptation.  I  had  only  little,  mean,  horrible  temp- 
tations—  and  I  didn't  resist  any  of  them.  The  other  sort 
of  sin  would  have  made  me  happier  —  it  would  have  meant 

[343] 


CONSEQ UENCES 


a  sort  of  success  in  a  way  —  but  I  have  been  a  failure  at 
everything  —  always." 

Her  heart  hammering  against  her  side,  Alex  resolved  that 
in  this,  her  last  disgrace,  she  would  not  fail. 

Making  no  preparations,  no  written  farewells,  she  rose 
presently  and  went  to  her  room,  where  she  put  on  her  thick- 
est coat  and  tied  a  woollen  scarf  over  her  head. 

Then  she  went  out. 

It  had  stopped  raining,  and  the  air  was  soft  and  moist.  It 
was  a  starless  night,  and  when  Alex  got  to  the  Heath  and 
away  from  the  lighted  streets,  it  was  very  dark.  Under- 
neath her  sense  of  adventure  she  was  conscious  of  terror  — 
sheer  physical  terror  —  and  also  of  the  deeper  dread  that 
her  resolution  might  fail  her. 

"  I  mustn't  —  I  mustn't,"  she  kept  on  muttering  to  herself. 

Then,  as  though  reassuring  somebody  else,  "  But  it's 
only  like  going  for  a  journey  —  to  a  quite  new  place  where 
everything  may  be  different  and  much,  much  better  ...  or 
else  to  sleep,  and  never  any  waking  up  to  misery  again.  .  .  . 
Just  one  dreadful  minute  or  two,  perhaps,  and  then  it  will 
all  be  over  .  .  .  only  a  question  of  a  little  physical  courage 
.  .  .  not  to  struggle  .  .  .  like  taking  gas  .  .  .  much  easier 
if  one  doesn't  struggle.  .  .  ." 

She  was  struck  by  a  sudden  thought  and  said  aloud,  tri- 
umphantly, as  though  she  were  defeating  by  her  inspiration 
some  one  who  was  urging  difficulties  upon  her : 

"  I  won't  give  myself  any  chances.  I'll  put  big  stones  in 
my  pocket  and  tie  my  scarf  over  my  mouth.  That'll  make 
it  quicker,  too." 

When  she  came  to  the  part  of  the  Heath  where  the  water 
lay,  Alex  began  to  stoop  down  and  hunt  for  stones.  She 
pounced  on  each  one  that  seemed  larger  than  its  fellows  with 
a  sense  of  pride  at  her  own  success,  and  put  them  into  the 
pockets  of  her  coat.  The  moon  appeared  palely  through 
clouds  and  then  disappeared  again,  but  not  before  she  had 
taken  her  bearings. 

[344] 


FORGIVENESS 


She  was  on  one  of  the  many  wide  bridges  that  span  the 
long  pools  dotted  over  the  Heath  —  pools  shelving  at  the  sides 
with  an  effect  of  shallowness  and  deepening  suddenly  in  the 
middle.  Alex  threw  an  indifferent  glance  at  the  dark  water, 
and  only  felt  annoyance  that  so  few  stones  should  be  loose 
upon  the  pathway,  and  none  of  them  very  large  ones.  When 
her  pockets  were  filled,  she  did  not  think  the  weight  very 
noticeable. 

Then  came  another  evanescent  gleam  of  moonlight,  and 
Alex,  still  with  that  sharpening  of  all  her  perceptions,  no- 
ticed that  there  was  a  man's  figure  at  the  far  end  of  the 
bridge.  He  appeared  to  be  stationary,  leaning  on  the  para- 
pet and  gazing  down  at  the  almost  invisible  pond. 

She  was  conscious  of  vexation.  His  presence  would 
surely  interfere  with  her  scheme. 

For  a  moment  she  wondered,  detachedly  enough,  whether 
s-he  should  go  away  and  come  back  the  following  evening. 
But  the  next  instant  she  recoiled  from  the  thought,  as  though 
seeing  in  it  the  promptings  of  her  own  weakness. 

"  I  am  not  frightened  tonight  —  at  least,  hardly  at  all.  If 
I  wait  I  may  never  feel  like  this  again.  I  shall  make  a 
failure  of  it  all,  and  that  would  be  worse  than  anything.  I 
must  do  it  tonight,  while  I'm  not  frightened." 

She  was  not  cold.  Walking  in  her  heavy  coat  had 
warmed  her,  and  the  evening  was  mild  as  well  as  damp.  So 
she  waited  quietly  in  the  shadow,  hoping  that  the  man  would 
presently  move  away. 

The  thought  crossed  her  mind,  with  a  certain  humour,  that 
the  situation  held  possibilities  of  romance. 

*'  If  it  were  in  a  book,  he  would  save  me  at  the  last  minute 
and  fall  in  love  with  me  and  it  would  all  end  happily.  Or  he 
would  see  me  now,  and  perhaps  speak  to  me,  and  he  would 
understand  all  I  told  him,  and  persuade  me  not  to.  Any- 
how, it  would  all  come  right." 

She  smiled  in  the  darkness. 

"  But  that  won't  happen  to  me.    There  never  was  any 

[345] 


CONSEQUENCES 


one  —  and  nobody  would  love  me  now,  especially  when  they 
knew  all  about  me."  She  remembered  the  haggard,  distorted 
countenance  that  the  looking-glass  had  shown  her  —  the 
great,  starting  eyes  with  discoloured  circles  beneath  them, 
and  the  blackened,  prominent  teeth,  more  salient  than  ever 
from  the  thinness  of  her  face. 

She  could  almost  have  laughed,  without  any  conscious 
bitterness,  at  the  idea  of  any  romance  in  connection  with  her 
present  self. 

And  yet  the  girl,  Alex  Clare,  could  have  loved  —  had 
looked  forward  to  love  and  to  happiness  as  her  rights,  just 
as  Pamela  Clare  did  now. 

But  Pamela  was  different.     Every  one  was —    No! 

It  was  Alex  that  was  different  —  that  had  always  been 
different. 

She  began  to  feel  less  warm,  and  shivered  a  little  as  she 
waited. 

It  occurred  to  her,  not  with  any  sense  of  fear,  but  with 
vexation,  that  her  purpose  would  be  far  more  difficult  of 
achievement  if  she  waited  until  she  was  physically  chilled. 

She  looked  up  at  the  bridge  again,  and  the  figure  was  still 
there,  at  the  furthest  end.  Alex  measured  the  length  of  the 
bridge  with  her  eyes. 

It  was  doubtful  if  he  would  see  her  from  the  furthest  end 
of  it,  but  she  reflected  matter-of-f actly : 

*'  If  I  jump  there  will  be  the  noise  of  a  splash  —  and  he 
might  do  something  —  he  would  try  to  save  me,  I  suppose  — 
or  run  for  help.     It  wouldn't  be  safe.     If  he  would  only  go." 

She  became  irritated.  With  a  sense  of  despair  she  deter- 
mined to  circumvent  the  motionless,  watchful  figure. 

Moving  very  quietly  and  almost  soundlessly  over  the  soft 
muddy  ground,  Alex  made  her  way  from  the  path  to  the 
bank,  and  further  and  further  down  it  till  only  a  short  de- 
clivity of  shelving  mud  lay  between  her  and  the  water. 

She  could  feel  the  brambles  catching  in  her  thick  coat  as 
though  pulling  her  back,  but  she  went  on,  cautiously  and 
steadily.     Once  or  twice  she  pushed  at  the  low,  tangled 

[346I 


FORGIVENESS 


bushes  that  impeded  her  progress,  and  paused  aghast  at  the 
rustHng  that  ensued.  But  from  the  bridge  above  her  there 
came  no  sound. 

Within  a  few  steps  of  the  dark  water,  her  feet  already 
sinking  ankle-deep  into  the  wet,  spongy  ground,  she  stopped. 

She  realized  with  wondering  joy  that,  after  all,  she  was 
not  very  much  afraid.  It  was  as  though  the  self-confidence 
which  had  for  so  long  deserted  her  had  come  back  now  to 
carry  her  through  the  last  need. 

She  felt  proud,  because  she  knew  that  for  this  once  she 
was  not  going  to  fail. 

She  talked  to  herself  in  a  whisper : 

"This  one  time  —  just  a  few  minutes  when  it  may  be 
very  bad  —  but  remember  that  it  can't  last  long,  and  then 
it'll  all  be  over.  And  perhaps  there'll  never  be  anything 
more  afterwards  —  Hke  being  always  asleep,  and  no  one 
need  be  vexed  or  disappointed  any  more.     But  perhaps  — " 

She  paused  on  the  thought,  and  her  heart  began  to  beat 
faster  with  a  hopeful  excitement  such  as  she  had  not  known 
for  a  very  long  while. 

"  Perhaps  it  will  be  much  better  than  one  imagines  pos- 
sible. Perhaps  there'll  be  real  forgiveness  and  understand- 
ing —  and  then  my  having  done  this  won't  matter.  Anyway, 
I  shall  know  very  soon,  if  only  Fm  brave  just  for  a  few 
minutes." 

She  drew  a  long  breath,  then,  instinctively  stretching  her 
arms  straight  out  before  -her  so  'as  to  balance  herself,  she 
began  to  move  forward. 

The  first  unmistakable  touch  of  the  water  round  her  feet 
made  her  gasp  and  stifle  a  scream,  but  she  waded  on,  en- 
couraging herself  in  a  low  murmur,  as  though  speaking  to 
a  child : 

"  It's  only  like  going  into  the  sea  when  one's  bathing  — 
pretend  it's  that,  then  you  won't  be  frightened.  Just  straight 
on  —  it  will  be  over  quite  soon  — " 

She  was  moving,  slowly,  but  without  pause,  her  hands  held 
out  in  front  of  her,  the  ground  still  beneath  her  slipping 

[347] 


CONSEQUENCES 


feet,  which  felt  oddly  weighted.  Once  she  began  to  pull  the 
woollen  scarf  over  her  mouth,  but  with  the  sense  of  breath- 
lessness  came  the  beginning  of  panic,  and  she  tore  it  away 
again. 

"  Go  on  —  coward  —  coward,"  she  urged  herself.  "  Re- 
member what  it  would  mean  to  make  another  muddle  of  this, 
and  to  fail." 

The  cold  invaded  her  body  and  her  teeth  began  to  chatter. 

For  an  instant  she  stood,  surrounded  by  the  silent  water, 
cold  and  terror  and  the  weight  of  her  now  sodden  clothing 
paralysing  her,  so  that  she  could  move  neither  backwards  to 
the  shore  nor  forward  into  the  blackness  in  front  of  her. 

"  I  must,"  muttered  Alex,  and  wrenched  one  foot  despe- 
rately out  of  the  mud  below.  With  the  forward  movement, 
she  lost  her  balance,  and  her  hands  clutched  instinctively  at 
the  water's  level.  Then  the  clogging  bottom  of  the  pond 
sheered  away  suddenly  from  beneath  her,  and  there  was  only 
water,  dark  and  icy  and  rushing,  above  and  below  and  all 
round  her. 


[348] 


XXX 

Epitaph 

THEY  sat  round,  afterwards,  in  the  Clevedon  Square 
drawing-room  —  all  the  people  who  had  helped  mis- 
guided, erring  Alex,  according  to  their  lights,  or 
again,  according  to  their  limitations,  and  who  had  failed  her 
so  completely  in  the  ultimate  essential. 

Pamela  and  her  lover  whispered  together  in  the  window. 

"  After  all,  you  know,"  hesitated  the  girl,  "  she  had  noth- 
ing much  to  live  for,  poor  Alex.  She'd  got  out  of  touch 
with  all  of  us  —  and  she  had  no  one  of  her  very  own." 

"  Not  like  us." 

His  hand  closed  for  an  instant  over  hers. 

'*  There  was  no  reason  why  she  should  not  have  come  to 
us  if  —  if  she  was  in  money  difficulties,"  reiterated  Cedric 
uneasily.     He  consciously  refrained  from  adding  "  again." 

Violet  was  crying  softly,  lying  back  in  the  depths  of  a 
great  arm-chair. 

"  Poor  Alex !  I  never  guessed  Maiden  Road  was  like 
that.     Why  did  she  go  there  ?     Oh,  poor  Alex !  " 

"  You  were  nicer  to  her  than  any  of  us,  Violet,"  said 
Archie  gruffly.  "  She  was  awfully  fond  of  you,  wasn't  she, 
and  of  the  little  kid?" 

Barbara,  hard  and  self-contained,  gazed  round  the  fa- 
miliar room.  For  a  moment  it  seemed  to  her  that  they  were 
all  children  again,  sent  down  from  the  nursery  by  old  Nurse, 
on  Lady  Isabel's  "  At  Home  "  afternoon. 

Her  eyes  met  those  of  Cedric,  who  had  taken  up  his  stand 
against  the  mantelpiece,  in  his  hand  his  glasses,  which  he 
was  shaking  with  little,  judicial  jerks. 

"  Oh,  Cedric,"  said  Barbara  with  a  sudden  catch  in  her 
voice. 

[349] 


CONSEQUENCES 


"  Don't  you  remember  —  Alex  was  such  a  pretty  little 
girl!" 


London,  191 7. 
Bristol^  1918. 


THE  END 


[350] 


U.C.BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


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CONSEQUENCES 

"  Don't  you  remember  —  Alex  was  such  a  pretty  little 
girl!" 

London,  1917. 
Bristol^  1918. 


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